In this festive season of seeming chaos, my husband and I have been discussing when we could possibly squeeze in a bit of time to do some holiday shopping together for stocking stuffers and such for our crew. There was one clear opening, and it would mean taking our 18-month-old along for the adventure after 6:30pm at night. One of us suggested that this could work. The other warned that this could be nightmarish, but one of us insisted because…Christmas. So the other of us reluctantly agreed and off we ventured on a cold winter’s night into the retail realm that is called Short Pump, Virginia.
As we made our way down Broad Street in our 184-horsepower-open-sleigh-SUV, we were not laughing all the way. The tiny tot was getting restless after a couple of initial errands, and the soundtrack of Newsies (his most recent favorite) was no longer helping him to forget that he was being held hostage in the backseat. Rolling down and up, and down and up his window helped for a bit as he was mesmerized by the slew of passing cars with their jolly red lights. But only for a bit.
One of us who is easily unsettled by an upset toddler crying “milk!’ whilst dodging deranged drivers (’tis the season!) was relieved to finally pull in to the parking lot of World Market. “World Market—yay!” we thought. Such a fun store. This will be okay.
For about an hour the tiny tot perused the unique items that make up this wonderland market, picking up an item here and placing it over there, attempting to pull tags off of anything that had one, and switching price markers (my apologies to the employees). At one point we had three whole trinkets in a basket that we were considering and searching for a few more, but who can focus when you’re diving to grab a bottle of wine out of a toddlers hands? Alas, we put back the three trinkets and the shopping basket and followed the tiny tot around the store, focusing on keeping him from getting us thrown out. We left the store after paying for a two-pack of Biscoff cookies to bribe the tot to help convince the tot that being held hostage in the backseat isn’t so bad if you have a cookie. It worked. Praise be.
This adventure must have worn the tiny tot out since it’s 8:45am the following morning and I’m still sipping my coffee in silence as the cutie is fast asleep. Cheers to that! And cheers to online shopping and lightning-fast shipping, which may not be quite as fun but a hell-of-a-lot more sane.
So, I fully surrender and recommit to staying home as much as possible in this season of life with a brilliantly bright and bold baby boy. And who knows? Maybe we’ll try again next year. That is, if the other of us agrees that it could work and wouldn’t be nightmarish. Time will tell. Until then, I’ll continue to take advantage of the modern convenience of ordering basically anything we could ever want or need from the comfort (and safety) of my couch and my yoga pants as tiny tot happily entertains himself by remodeling the living room. Win-win.
Merry Christmas!