terrible.

I should have known by the blood curdling scream as I picked Henry up off his bike, that it wasn't going to be a good idea to go to the store. But he usually calms down right away when he sees us going outside, or in the car. But oh, no not this time. He screamed all the way to the store. He screamed as I dragged him through the parking lot. He screamed as I forced him down into the cart seat, buckling him in, as the bag boys watched me from the smoking area. He screamed as we entered the produce section. 'OK', I said to myself, 'maybe he'd be better off walking.' Nope. He screamed as he fell to the dirty floor, rolling back and forth, kicking his little legs.

A "nice" lady told me, "that boy needs a spanking."
"Maybe," I replied.
"What?! You don't spank him?"
"No." (Should I be?)
"Well maybe you should start," she said as she rolled her eyes
in disbelief that this sad girl was raising this poor child.
It doesn't help that I look like I'm 18.

Isle two. All I need is like four things. Four. It shouldn't be this hard, or this embarrassing, or this frustrating, or this "I can't believe I'm THAT mother dragging a screaming child through the store"...

A younger woman pulled her head out of the freezer, "Why don't you give him a pacifier already?" Really? You don't think I tried that already and got it thrown back into my face. Come on, do you think I am that stupid? Seriously chick-you must not be a mother.


Last isle, spagetti sauce that's it. I even grabbed the first one I saw. Get me out of here!

Then sweet old grandma Susie came up. She's an employee of the store.
"Are you giving trouble to your mama?"
Silence. Can a 19 month old be embarrassed?
"And not one little tear. Your mama's spoiling you!"
Susie proceeds to take me to the check out line. Maybe her boss encouraged her to get this embarrassment of a mother out of his store!


Check out lady stares at me with empathy. Or maybe pity. "How old is he?"
"19 months."
"Have you ever heard of the terrible twos?"
Of course I have lady, I wasn't raised in the stone age.
"It looks like you've got to worse of the worse on your hands."
Thanks lady. How's that for encouragement!

Maybe it's his natural inborn stubbornness.
Maybe it's his daddy's red-headedness coming out.
Maybe it's my bratiness shining through.
Or maybe it was just gas. Oh lets hope it was gas.
But something makes me think it wasn't.

The Times A-Changin'

I was fascinated by this short story in Newsweek in the last edition. I returned from Ukraine after living there for two years in December 1999. So for me adulthood really began at that time. Well, this "Backstory" in Newsweek shared fifteen media changes that have taken place since 2000. It makes me feel like my childhood and adolescence took place during the stone age or at the very least the horse and buggy age. A lot had changed and it blows my mind thinking Henry is going to grow up with all of these media changes being a normal thing.

1. Active Blogs 2000: 12,000 2010: 141 million

2. Daily Google Searches 2000: 100 million 2010: 2 billion

3. Reality TV Shows 2000: 4 2010: 210

4. Video Game Revenue 2000: $207.88 million 2010: $19.66 billion

5. "Law & Order" Episodes 2000: 223 2010: 905

6. Books Published: 2000 282,242 2010: 1,052,803

7. Daily Letters Mailed 2000: 207.88 billion 2010: 175.67 billion

8. Daily E-Mails 2000: 12 billion 2010: 247 billion

9. Text Messages 2000: 400,000 2010: 4.5 billion

10. Hard-Drive Storage 2000: 10 dollars/gigabyte 2010: 6 cents/gigabyte

11. Clowns [available on-line] 2000: 1,200 2010: 2,700

12. Time Spent Online 2000: 2.7 hrs/week 2010: 18 hrs/week

13. Daily Newspapers 2000: 1,480 2010: 1,302

14. CD Sales Revenue 2000: $943 million 2010: $427.9 million

15. iTunes Download 2000: 0 2010: 10 billion

A few things pop out at me. The world was better with less reality TV not more, I thought there were way more episodes of "Law & Order," I refuse to add to the number of text messages, it's impossible to imagine a world without iTunes, and being a guy with a serious clown-phobia that number is disturbing.