Tuesday, March 29, 2011

A conversational moment with Lucy

Lucy is now at that age, about 3 3/4s, where some of the things that come out of her mouth are priceless -- artless and without affectation in any way.

Lucy and I were at BJs (NO we don't have a Costco here. Do I seem testy about that??! Why Yes I am, thank you) Wholesale Club yesterday while Erin was visiting Emily's classroom for an hour or so. She was sitting in the basket part of the cart, not the kids' seats, and goofing around, talking silly baby talk (she's well past that but loves to be silly with it). John called after his lunch break to check in. I was wheeling the cart along, talking to Johnnie and Lucy was babbling. In the midst of her babbling, Lucy sticks her right thumb in her mouth like a baby and begins sucking on it seriously, eyeing me with her typical mischievous  sparkle and smirk around the thumb.

I was really surprised so I said, with a fair amount of emphasis, "Lucy, what are you doing? Take your thumb OUT of your MOUTH!"

She took her thumb out, looked at me and broke down into piteous sobs, curling into a heap on the bottom of the basket. This isn't my first rodeo at this, nor is it Lucy's so I knew most of it was an act. That and she hates having her feelings hurt and I had obviously hurt her feelings by hopping on her so vehemently.

I hung up on Johnnie and tried to reason with Lucy. Yeah, no success, just more sobs. So we proceeded to the dog food and treat aisle where I loaded up on dog treats first, then went for the 44 pound bag of dog food. With Lucy in the basket part of the cart, I figured I would put the bag on the bottom tray. Easy peasy, right? Not so much. Remember, it's 44 pounds. Ugh.

I was struggling to move the dead floppy weight of the dog food bag onto the cart with my foot wedged behind the front wheel to keep the cart from scooting backwards. This continued for a couple minutes: tugging, lifting, hefting, scooching and so forth. Lucy was just above where all this activity was occurring and she became interested in what I was doing. I was completely ignoring her (not the first rodeo, yeah).

After watching me for a little bit, she said, in a completely normal voice, "Here, Gwamma, get me out and I'll help you." The tears, the sobs, the entire event was turned off like magic.

I lifted her out and she proceeded to try to tug the bag onto the shelf. Yeah, little girlfriend, not gonna happen. So I sent her to the back of the cart to hold the handle and just keep the cart from moving backwards as I shoved the bag onto the shelf. She was too small and maybe didn't understand what I was saying because the cart sailed backwards as though nothing and no one was preventing its backward movement. After more tugging and shoving, it was finally far enough on the shelf so it wouldn't drag on the floor so I loaded Lucy back in and off we went.

As we rounded the corner to head towards the fruit and meat area, I said, "Lucy, I'm really sorry I hurt your feelings. I was just so surprised that you were sucking your thumb!"

She replied in complete seriousness, "That's OK, Gwamma. You just bwoke my heart."

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