The Walmart Experience

I took Matthew to Walmart today - there were a few things I needed to get, not the least of which was yet another cabinet latch - hopefully not one they can figure out within 23.6 seconds. At the very least, one is necessary to keep Joey out of the VCR/DVD/Receiver electronics bay, since he has discovered that pushing buttons is fun, and pushing buttons that make mummy leap out of her chair to either put the phone back on the reciever, or turn the TV back on, or whatever are the most fun to push.

Normally, people without kids or those with older kids just go to Walmart; but for those of us with small kids, and kids that tend to get into mischief, going to Walmart is not so much a trip as it is an experience. Since the baby was asleep, and I am not insane enough today to take both of the older boys to Walmart at the same time, I opted to take ONE, and Matthew was the one.
Duncan, being the oldest, was allowed the privilege of "helping" Daddy fix the outlet outside on the back of the house that wasn't working.

Off we go to Walmart, with Matthew feeling quite excited and privileged himself to be the one going on an outing with mum.
On the way there, he insisted he saw a fan outside - I'm not sure what he was looking at - I saw nothing that resembled a fan shape, but since Matthew can recognize a fan in just about everything he sees these days, I merely nodded a "thats nice dear" and continued on. Walmart is roughly 5 minutes away.
We arrived at Walmart and he was very good about holding my hand in the parking lot. For 3 seconds. Then he decided he had to be carried in, because it was windy. It is 28˚Celcius today, which is roughly 85˚F - so generally considered warm - even by the standards of my friends in warmer climates, such as Florida, or California. In any case, the wind was barely enough to knock the bowler off an Englishman, but Matthew hates wind - warm or cold, and had to be shielded from it, in case it blew in his face.
Managed to get into the store, where there were no carts left, which disturbed him greatly. What on earth would we do without a cart. Not to worry, I tell him, because we are only getting a few things, and we don't need a cart. - Fair enough he agreed. Headed off to the baby department to look at latches and locks and immediately had to make a detour for the boy to use the bathroom, because after all, he is 3 and like most 3 yr olds, has to use the bathroom at every location you ever stop at. After emerging from the bathroom, and finding a lock that appeared suitable, we were off to the checkout, when Matthew passed a whole aisle full of lava lamps. This excite him so much he wasn't going anywhere. On the end of the aisle, I spied a bunch of small plug in nightlights that looked like lava lamps, and they were only 5$, so i appeased him with one of those, since he was in need of a nightlight anyway. It was called a Motion Fun Light. It had lots of colourful packaging, and the display was eye-level with a 3 yr old, so really, this is a win-win sitution right? Matthew wanted to hold the light, and was more than agreeable to follow me throughout the store, so long as he was able to hold his new toy.

Down to the pharmaceutical aisle, which was somewhat more crowded, and closer to the checkout - and this is where he began to get disoriented. You know those little electronic chime things that go off when somebody enters a store, basically to alert the storeowner that someone is coming in. They had one of those one one of the displays somewhere, and with the multitudes of people in the aisles, the thing was chiming every 3 seconds. Matthew got very annoyed and started yelling "Who is ringing that doorbell?" Most likely because HE wanted to ring it. Like yesterday when he ran up and down the street ringing the doorbells of EVERY SINGLE ONE OF OUR NEIGHBOURS, most of whom were very good natured about being disturbed by my little boy playing Nicky Nicky 9 Doors.
Anyway, Matthew was annoyed by the chiming sound, and then he said "I hear music" which was the piped in music at Walmart which was very low (I could barely hear it) and then he stopped in the middle of a busy aisle wailing "IT"S TOO LOUD" at which point I told him to cover up his ears because we were on our way to the checkout, and we'd be getting out of this store. So here I am with a handful of things in one hand, trying to steer Matthew in front of me, around other people and carts, while he is clutching his lavalamp nightlight in one hand, and holding his ear closed with the other. Of the 18 checkouts about 3 are open, each with a large line of people who decided that today was going to be the day for them to buy out half the store in a crazy back-to-school shopping marathon. My 5 items and a little boy gripping his ear were invisible behind the lady with 12,000 items in her cart, I'm sure it never occured to her to let us go ahead - not that I expected it, but it would have been nice if there was a little consideration for him, obviously not wanting to be at Walmart a second longer than he had to be. I got out of line, and joined another line, that had a faster checkout clerk, and only one person ahead of me, so we did get out of Walmart, relatively unscathed, and we were on our way to Tim Hortons, to pick up a donut that I had promised him earlier.
I took this moment to reflect and wonder how my husband was making out with his little helper, and I smiled as I thought how wonderful it was that my boys would become as handy as my husband is, simply be being his "helper" when he got into fixit mode. How my little boys would learn from their dad, how to fix outlets, and patch walls, and BBQ the perfect steak - all through simple observation. It made me smile, and I bought a donut for each of my big boys - and Daddy too.;Just as soon as Matthew got out of the bathroom at the donut shop.
Arrived home to find ALL of the tools sitting on my kitchen counter, and one of the indoor outlets pulled apart, with a very fretful Chris thinking that this outlet repair was going to be much more difficult than he expected. Put in a call to his stepfather - an electrician - to get a little advice on where to begin, and found out the real problem - which was that the outlet outside on the FRONT, was connected to the outside outlet on the back, and all it took was hitting the built in reset button on the front to allow them both to work perfectly fine.
The boys ate their donuts, and I opened up Matthew's light, and plugged it in for him, so he could see the bubbly action.
Written on the back of the packaging were the words - This is not a toy. Oh well.
The Walmart experience has been fun. And best of all - it has tired Matthew out.