We went to the mall today. Button and I. Went to the mall. It was a big day.

She used to be very easy to take on a stroller ride around the mall, which gave me the chance to get some exercise while staying indoors. But now she is no longer content to ride around and watch all the scenery go by.

She wants to walk. And she doesn’t want to walk WITH me…no. She would much rather determine her own path.
The situation is further complicated by the fact that I was actually trying to BUY stuff today, not just buzz around the track a few times. Approximately half an hour into our journey, my stress level was at Orange.

I eventually stopped fighting the fits she was throwing in the stroller and figured she could use some exercise (apparently the time spent in the CHAOS of the children’s play area wasn’t enough) so I let her walk, provided that she hold my hand. She wasn’t really into that either after a while.

The child is fearless. I realize that I’m partially responsible for that because I’m usually there to protect her from bad things, so she has no reason to suspect that anything negative will result if she runs away, dives off a sofa or jumps on the bed. I have to reinforce discipline repeatedly right now, so I was getting really tired of running after her every time she dropped my hand and ran, grabbing her hand and leading her back, and laying out that her only options were hold my hand or ride in the stroller.

And then the answer came. She dropped my hand again but instead of running away, she grabbed the metal rim on the basket at the bottom of the stroller with both hands. And started pushing.

And boy, did she push. She threw her back into it like there was a task manager cracking a whip behind her. She pushed that stroller from one end of the mall to the other, stopping only briefly to inspect a piece of lint on the ground. I steered, she pushed. And pushed and pushed and pushed. In stores, out of stores, wherever I needed to go…as long as I didn’t need to stop for more than 3 seconds.

Everybody that went by got a chuckle out of “Mommy’s Little Helper.”  She went about this the same way she does all her self-appointed tasks:  with utmost seriousness and determination.

And then she took a most excellent nap. It was a good day.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 7th, 2006 at 11:47 pm and is filed under Daily, Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.