Adventures at Walmart

Whenever we go grocery shopping Alana finds a way to make it interesting. Ava goes to sleep in her carseat and makes my life a little easier and Alana entertains me. First stop is the donut case by customer service to get something fried with frosting. Then for the first couple of aisles she sits in the cart preoccupied with her sugar rush until she is done - usually she's "done" with the donut after she eats the frosting off the top. Then she is released into the store to burn off the donut she just ate. She always makes sure to say hi to every old person she sees, to her everyone over 45 looks like a grandparent. She points out every baby and occasional service dog. One nice old lady who we see there pretty frequently has a chihuahua service dog named Tinkerbell that she lets Alana pet. Who knows what service a chihuahua can actually perform? Looking bug eyed and shivering? Anyways, then she always asks if we can look at the toys. I usually let her, though we don't buy one and she is pretty accepting of that.

The last time we went to Walmart we were walking through the electronics department and they were playing that Michael Jackson movie on all of the TV's. She said "look Mommy, it's Michael Jackson!" Then she stopped in the middle of the aisle, stood in a very Michael Jackson looking pose and proceeded to dance along with the music. She was mimicking the moves on the video and really pulling out all of the stops. I was surprised she didn't start moonwalking right there. We were kind of in a back aisle so no one was treated to a free show of her moves, but I'm sure they would've been impressed.

If Alana has been reasonably well behaved and we're running low on popsicles I usually let her pick out a box. She narrows it down to 2 choices: Dora pops or Ice Age pops. The Ice Age pops are slow melt (great for kids who eat their popsicles as slow as Alana) but have a nasty gummy candy in the top so she usually goes with Dora. She doesn't like fruit snacks or granola bars so I never have to make deals in that aisle. Just the frozen section.

Occasionally we will venture over to the seasonal section where she will attempt to put some kind of stuffed monstrosity with cheap looking fur into the cart. I put her off, saying maybe next time or for Christmas. Then when we get to the register and she is looking all cute and helping me put food up on the conveyor belt I sometimes offer her the chance to get candy. She always picks something obnoxious, like a candy baby bottle with gross pink sugar inside that she will inevitably spill on the carpet.

I'm just glad that whenever I take her to the store she is always well behaved. She puts toys back on the shelf without crying when I tell her to, she politely says hi to everybody (except the greeter with the stickers, she hates them) and she isn't yet big enough to throw lots of junk food in the cart.