A Simple Trip to the Grocery Store

As many of you know, a simple trip to the grocery store can become an adventure.  Below is my latest grocery shopping experience with my little man....

We pull up to the grocery store as usual and last minute as I was getting Chase out of his car seat he snatched up his baby doll like Swiper on Dora the Explore.  Apparently, Chase decided that his grocery shopping experience would be much more complete if his baby doll could accompany us into the store, which I didn’t see an issue with, so Chase and I marched into the store, with his baby doll in tow. Chase played well with his baby doll while we went through each aisle.  He rocked, fed and burped his baby.  His baby doll even got to try some grapes (I swear it's not stealing if a human doesn't actually consume the merchandise).

All seemed normal until we reached the checkout lane. As we were standing in the checkout line Chase starts squeezing his baby’s stomach so tightly that his knuckles were turning white.  He was panting as if he had just completed a marathon and needed a puff off my inhaler. This continued for about 30 seconds (which seemed like a very long, embarrassing 30 seconds). When he was finished with this bazaar action, he looks at me, shrugged his tiny shoulders and simply said, “Mommy, I squeezed my baby,” as if that was a normal behavior.  I was caught off-guard so all I could manage to say was, “Well, that was strange.”  The middle-aged gentleman standing patiently behind us in line looked down at Chase and then looked up at me and said, “Yes, that was strange,” and scurried to the next checkout aisle.

We almost made it out of the grocery store without a story- better luck next time.