48

Yikes. I had no idea it had been this long since I last wrote an update. Wow. Where does the time go? Well, maybe Orlando.

Just a quick update on the girlfriend: she's moved. Jack has his first heartbreak, right?

Yesterday, we stopped at the local grocery on the way home from school. Going to the store with Jack is always a crapshoot. Sometimes he will sit in the cart, sometimes he won't. Sometimes he'll be good. Sometimes he won't. (Mostly he isn't.)

I kept him distracted as I dumped him in the cart... that last about 30 seconds. He wanted out. That means a very quick shopping stop. Then I ran into one of our reject realtors. We ended up chatting too long. So long in fact, that Jack interrupted saying, "Let's go, Mama." Kinda funny, kinda cute... yes, indeed rude. But it was a nice break from that awful situation.

Prelude. When we had pulled into the parking lot, Jack started chanting, "Happy To-to, Mama! Happy to-to!" I was oblivious to what he was talking about. When he says "Happy to-to!" he is actually trying to say "Happy Birthday." So I numbly nodded and smiled thinking about what I was going to get for another bland dinner.

Point of the story. So as I was awkwardly try to backward step this realtor, I noticed my kid had run ahead, screaming "Mama! Happy To-to! Happy To-to!" And then I realized: he was going for the ice cream. The last time we visited this neighborhood grocery, he eyeballed the individual kid-geared ice cream mini-freezer and wanted one, bad. However, he'd already dug into some Skittles (yes, I am a sucker) and I put my foot down... And so did he. I actually had to drag him out of the store. So, to calm him, I promised him next time we'd get the ice cream sandwich that he sooo wanted.

Thus the "Happy To-To!"
That little stinker remembered.

So I walked down to the freezer. I tried the "Oh, you don't want that. That's yucky!" card but it didn't work. He wanted the M&M cookies with sweet vanilla ice cream sandwiched. He knew he had me.

"Help! Mama! Happy To-to!"

I will tell you what. He sat in that cart the whole rest of the time happily munching on his "Happy To-to" ice cream. Sure, he got it all over his face, all over his new jacket and got sticky fingers. Sure, I ended up spending $78 on groceries when I wouldn't have had time to spend that much before. But, he was happy right?