Being an adult at the baby gap

So today, as I was playing with Annabelle, I noticed that most of her toys were fabric covered blocks that squeak or rattle. I also noticed that she had a tractor in her hands and was wheeling it around the floor and saying "vroom, vroom." I am not sure where she learned vroom vroom, but it was totally cool and cute. So I decided to go to this toy store and get her some more age appropriate stuff to play with. (for you english majors our there-- I know I should have said "with which to play"--go read The Riverside Shakespeare and leave me alone) Now this toy store just happened to be next to The Gap and the Gap Body, a den of iniquity for me in my paycheck days. Of course, I went in to check them out, because I figured I can have freakish willpower when need be. Also I needed a bra. Surely just one bra wouldn't hurt anything and would probably even save me money later since everyone knows that a properly fitted bra is important to the chi-chis, whereby preventing me from having cosmetic surgery to put them back where they used to be before I gave birth and our house turned into a show on the national geographic channel, you know the one, where the natives walk around shirtless with a hungry baby on one teet while they are weave a colorful garment and swat away flies. (yes people I know that was a run on sentence, but you can't even be finished with the introduction to Riverside yet)

Anyway, I go into what was once the Gap Body only to find that it turned into a Baby Gap. Crap. There goes the willpower. So I am looking around at all the cutie-pie clothes and Annabelle runs off. I dash over to get her and find her at one of the display tables messing with stuff. Then she is at the sock stand taking socks off, then she is at another display table and this time she takes a pair of pants and throws them on the floor. Now I really didn't plan on having one of those horrible little monster kids that does that sort of thing, but apparently I do. I said "No Annabelle!" and gave her one my best "eat shit and die" looks which according to Hyphen and my sister, are real scary. She was unfazed and laughed hysterically and went to the next table and grabbed an entire stack of shirts and flung them on the floor with what can only be described as unrepentant glee. And honestly, it looked like so much fun. I wanted to laugh so hard. And then I wanted to grab another pile of shirts and fling them on the floor too. And then I wanted us to go around the store grabbing stuff from every table and throwing it everywhere screaming and laughing until they kicked us out. But I couldn't, because I was an adult at the Baby Gap.

Now, I also didn't really plan on being a mom that would have to spank my kid in public, because let's face it, Annabelle is half Asian and half me, and I just assumed she would never misbehave. But I did. It wasn't out of anger that I spanked her--I wasn't mad--it's just that as a society, we have decided that the shirts in the Gap must remain folded. I could feel the dirty looks of some of the other shoppers, but they can go read the Riverside Shakespeare too.

Oh yeah, in case you were wondering, two tops and a dress.