You again, Grandmomma and Granddaddy???

Thursday, November 29, 2007
The Little Princess and her Mommy came over to visit us this afternoon. I’m not sure how she can stand to see us another day this week. We’ve spent two whole days with her, Monday and Wednesday, but she came again. There weren't any major meltdowns along the way, but I wouldn't have been surprised if there had been.

We took her to Wal-Mart with us (Granddaddy was still recuperating from the previous two days) while her mommy returned about a million jars of baby food that The Little Princess has outgrown and now has decided she will not eat baby food any more.

Well, I guess there may have been $20 dollars worth, plus a bunch of other stuff that her mommy had accumulated around her house and finally decided she really didn’t need after all..

That was an interesting little event in and of itself. As we checked in at the door, the woman with the little “pricing gun” decided each one had to be accounted for and rung up on the spot to prevent the people In customer service from being inconvenienced, I suppose. Some things did not appear to register as a return (there was the constant little tinny sound all along, but the noise that made the difference didn’t make its sound on every items she was returning. She and I both agreed we didn’t hear that magic sound on every item, even though I did see the lady punch in a few things…it just didn’t have the right sound to it.

Mommy decided she would have customer service count each item over again. C.S. decided she wouldn’t do a refund on the items unless Mommy had a receipt. She only had a receipt on some items she had bought prior to 90 days. Finally C.S. caught the man who appeared to be the manager or at least he seemed to be one who could be responsible for making a decision. After explaining her situation he didn’t seem too sympathetic. He asked if she had a receipt. She showed him the one she had for some of the stuff that was over 90 days old and he still didn’t seem too receptive. He offered to give her a swap on the food. Well, duh! She was returning it because the Little Princess wouldn’t eat baby food anymore. Maybe a swap on other baby items? That didn’t satisfy her either because she didn’t need more baby stuff at this point. She explained to him she did a lot of business with Wal-Mart each week, and she was pretty persistent. He finally decided he would do it this one time. She ended up returning around $40 dollars worth of stuff. She explained to him he could see the baby food hadn’t been opened and the date was still good on it. It was still saleable. I think she got a credit on her charge card for some of it and the rest on a gift certificate.

There were moments I felt like falling through a crack in the floor, but I can’t fault her too much. She is her mother’s daughter and I taught her to stand up for what she believed was right. And it wasn’t like she had stolen the merchandise. She had just kept it a little past the 90-day period, perhaps.

Thank goodness the Little Princess was in her usual happy mode and was flashing that dimpled little smile to anyone who would look at her. She is the most adorable little girl you could ever hope to be related to. Most days.

It was back home again for The Little Princess to take her afternoon nap. It was already a little after four o’clock. She had an hour and a half nap earlier in the morning and by the time we got back home she decided it wasn’t necessary for her to have a nap in the afternoon, so after a bit of attempting to get her to sleep her Mommy finally gave it up and took her shopping to the local discount mall. This was to return a bunch of merchandise she had bought, but since The Little Princess has so many clothes already she couldn’t possibly wear all the other outfits and had outgrown them, so they needed to be returned. (Granddaddy's still recuperating!)

It was on to Carter’s and then to Osh Kosh By Gosh without having to buy anything from them after receiving her credits. But she spotted the Stride Rite Shoe Store almost across the way from Osh Kosh By Gosh and she thought maybe The Little Princess could use a pair of the expensive shoes instead of those knock offs from Tar-jay’ As luck would have it, she found a couple of pairs of cute shoes. One pair of real little baby shoes like you’re supposed to wear and another little pair of black patent leather shoes.

The girl was very patient and helped quite a bit getting The Little Princess some proper fitting shoes. She mentioned that they are putting a different kind of sole on the baby shoes now than when my kids were little. They had the kind like men’s nice shoes are made of on the bottom. Those hard bottoms have been replaced by something more like soft tennis shoe type leather. She said the doctors have recommended little ones don’t need those hard soles like they used to wear. Why didn’t they invent those things years earlier. I remember quite a few times getting beaten and battered by those hard little soles on those shoes!

It was necessary to let The Little Princess out of her stroller so she could put her full weight on her new shoes to ensure a proper fit. That was a big mistake. Little princess (1) was elated to be out of the stroller and (2) loved toddling around in her nifty new shoes. She covered that store with such glee it was hard to believe a child could love either her freedom or her new shoes that much! She was all over that store in those little baby shoes.

At the back of the store there was a line of little shoe prints in many different sizes from a size 6 through a child’s size 4, in a number of different colors. I put my foot onto one of the bigger prints and that was all The Little Princess needed. She wanted to put her little foot print in each of them, too. She was a riot. She catches on so fast and loves doing her own little thing.

I finally got her distracted enough to move past a door in the back of the store, but it caught her attention and since it was only half-way closed, she leaned over forward in a belly bend and peeked in. It was so much fun watching her. She was so cute. I thought she would surely tip over! Just a nosy little 13 month old.

Mommy caught up with her and attempted to put on the little black patent leather shoes she had found. Little Princess wanted nothing to do with it. She loved her little new white shoes and nobody was going to take them away from her. She squirmed, she squealed until finally an exhausted Mommy prevailed and off came the white shoes and on went the little black patent leather ones. She loved those, too. All over the store, past the mirrors, stopping to take a peek and communicate with the little girl in the mirror and her grandmother, on toward the doors leading to center of the mall. She was indeed a handful trying to keep up with.

Finally, two pair of new shoes and a pair of old-fashioned little inventions made to keep baby from untying her shoes and with bells on them so you could at least guess where she was, later we worked our way to The Children’s Place. She was having nothing to do with being put back into that stroller. She was to be chased all over that store with me in tow. She stopped to clean up the floors of that store, and believe me they needed some help. She found every tag, every piece of tissue, every stray thread, stray clothes hangers, gum wrappers, what appeared to be a cracker wrapper, and any other thing she could find to pick up. She would hand them to me. She reminded me so much of her mother when she was little. Her Mommy would constantly spend time straightening all the books or anything else that was in the check-out area of K-Mart stores. I had to remind her that they paid people to do that and she wasn’t the one on the payroll. It never helped. She continued to carry on that habit for many years, until she got old enough to clean, then it wasn’t any fun anymore.

The Little Princess wanted nothing to do with her Mommy trying a new pretty pink coat on her. She was too busy and wanted to move on. Finally we did move on. All three of us before we were asked to leave. On to Burlington Coat Factory where her Mommy decided she needed to check for that coat there at Burlington. And again, it was limp as wet spaghetti for The Little Princess. She didn’t want to stand. She didn’t want to cooperate. She wanted to fall onto the floor and stay here. Arms raised, slide through, down to the floor. She was a re-incarnate from the '60's war protesters!

Finally, with a cute little pink coat and a busy little toddler in tow we started out the door. The Little Princess had finally agreed to let us put her back into the stroller. I had promised her she and I would walk around the store while Mommy made the purchase. Would you believe as soon as we both or all three made it through the door the alarm goes off. Mommy had to return to the cashier's counter. They had failed to remove that little inky thing that messes up your clothes if they don’t remove it before you leave the store. Or better known as the theft protection devise.

The Little Princess wasn’t real happy about being fastened into that carseat again, but she managed to survive. Not without a bit of fussing on the way home, though. It was almost 7:30 and about 1 ½ hours past her meal time. She had forgotten about it until we started home, then she remembered she was both sleepy and hungry. I think she was afraid she would miss a meal because she was so sleepy. She managed to stay awake until we got home and fed her a bit or two.

Then her Daddy came by to see her because she and her Mommy were spending the night with us. Daddy had a photography class tonight and it was near our house so it was convenient for him to come by and spend some time with his precious little girl and her mother. He was headed back to the office to do some more work himself and as soon as The Little Princess went to bed her Mommy was headed over to her office to get some work done.

Before she settled in for the night, though, she was so funny to watch her new little antics. She’s learning to Shake, shake, shake your booty and holds on to the table or whatever is in her way and shakes her little self. She tried to jump a bit and shake it.

She’s getting very good at squatting and pulling her little self from a sitting position into a standing one.

Her Daddy said she picked up an almost full 5 lbs. bag of flour from my storage spot. She’s very strong and determined.

Another thing I failed to make note of, but was kinda funny to me...she has complications at time and difficulty getting poopy diapers (that's not the funny part). Yesterday I heard her straining and handed her my hand and told her to hold on and squeeze hard. She did and made her little straining, grunting noises like she was trying so hard to go to the bathroom.

I did the same for her today and she took my hand and strained like she was getting a B.M. She was so funny. She did the same thing in the car on the way home tonight as I was telling her mother about what had happened. She really wasn’t trying to get a poopy diaper, but she understood and remember our little ritual from the day before. She is indeed a smart little cookie and a very fast learner.

I can’t imagine our lives without that little sweetheart. Keep growing and getting more precious every day, Little Princess. You make our lives complete.

Her Mommy has been mentioning all day that I look a bit tired and she wonders if I’ve been tired out from keeping The Little Princess this week. Well, I guess there could be a grain of truth in that, but she’s still so much fun.

Oh,and Granddaddy's still recuperating!