First, Sophie wanted balloons made out of plastic produce bags. That kept her happy for all of two minutes. Chloe, to her credit, helped bag the fruit. Then she went to the bakery for a couple of free cookies. She ended up eating two of them because Sophie wasn’t interested in hers. Chloe was actually fairly well-behaved, although she was almost always an aisle or two behind us – driven to distraction by treats she asked for us to buy (“No!” was a repeated refrain out of my mouth) and by $0.99 lip gloss (“No!” again).

Sophie became obsessed with a box of Non-Pareils that we were buying for the movies, and when we told her she had to wait until after lunch to eat them, she started moaning and groaning. As if the world were crashing down around her. Interspersed among the moans and groans were occasional screams, which were embarrassing, to say the least. She had a one-track mind during our excursion – that little box was pulling her in – turning her into a little monster.

Sophie did manage to charm the cashier, however. With her curls and her gleeful giggles as she played with the credit card machine. She wasn’t very happy when I had to take it over from her, though. She still hasn’t mastered the art of sharing.

I’m going to end this blog entry here – my computer continues to restart on me without warning, and I don’t want to lose any of my musings.