Shopping With Minors

The Trevor-lad turns 7 later this week, so I bit my lip, ignored my retroactive (and trust me, I'll never get repaid enough in a million years) need to be by myself and took both Nolan and Trevor shopping with me.

As we cruised through the pastoral wastelands, Trevor expounded for the upteenth time that he was going to be a farmer. We've told him almost as many times that this will be quite impossible, but he still remains optimistic.

Trevor: "We are driving through nothing but fields!"

Ma: "Yep. We live in the middle of farm country." (c'mon kid, you've lived here all your life. we take this same route shopping every week...what's your prob-lem?)

Trevor: "When I gwoh up, I'm gonna be a FAHM-oh."

Nolan: "Trevor...you'd better get that thought out of your head right now, before it cracks up and falls apart."

Trevor: "Now why do I have to think that?"

There's nothing as fun as two kids who can't quite grasp certain concepts, talking together about the future.
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Later at Wal*Mart, after we'd acquired two cheap LED flashlights (for which they will shell out part of their money) and definitely stated for the last time that, "No, we are NOT going to buy Star Wars laser-blasters. They cost 22 dollars!" I had the supreme ignorance to ask them, "So...do you want to get your snack here, or at the grocery store?"

I know. That was a really stupid question.

Nolan: (on the way to the checkout after being told he couldn't have yet another item) "If I could just have lots of things, I'd be happy."

Ma: "No. Having lots of things does not make you happy." (*sigh* that was pointless, but I feel that as a mature adult I'm supposed to tell him things like that)
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Now the grocery store. And even though they'd both had a Hershey's chocolate bar--not to mention their tiny little LED flashlights--Nolan again noticed the basket of tootsie rolls on top of the meat counter. I'm thinking he sensed--as he did at the pharmacy--that baskets of small candies were set at different places throughout his world for his sole gratification. And yet I was mean enough to ignore them.
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Last store. I'd forgotten to buy a snack for the kids at home, so I stopped off at the Ackley grocery to get some cookies.

Nolan: "Do they have toys here?"

Ma: "No. Well, they do...but we're not going to look at them."

Nolan: "Couldn't we just look at them?"

Ma: "NO."

Nolan "But we could just go look at them..."

I believe at this point someone said something very loud and then it got very quiet.

(inside the store, trying to find the cookie aisle...someone temporarily escaped)

Nolan: "Hey! They have Kung Fu Panda!"

Trevor: "Kung Fu Panda, is he-woh ?!"

Nolan: "It's the movie...they have videos."

Ma: "Come here ! We are getting cookies and that's all."

Trevor: "But can't I just see it?"

Ma: "NO. Come here. The cookies are this way..."

Trevor: "I just want to see the panda..."

Ma: "No. We have it at home."

(Ma wins the battle and cookies are acquired, paid for, and as we walk out the door...)

Nolan: "She didn't give us suckers..."

Ma: "C'mon! We have cookies. You don't need suckers!"
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That little skirmish behind us, we sailed home without further ado, while the kid-safe classical music station rang forth with meandering clarinets and french horns, lost in their usual lassitude and wandering despair of the concert band genre.

I'm too old for this.
 

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