From Cheesy Smile to Tears

In my house this is a common occurance as I have an 8 year old daughter. Ha! Who am I kidding, she has been that way since birth. Tonight, after picking my girl up from school, I informed her that we were heading to the grocery store. She was not thrilled and I told her that we were going to do this quickly so we could hurry up and get home. I asked her to please cooperate so that we could get home quickly and she could play outside. To my child, this is the ultimate gift...time to play outside! In response to my statement about cooperating I got a hesitant..."I'll try." I drove with little confidence that she was going to do this, the rest of the way to the store. We made it through the front doors and through most of the veggie section without incident. As we headed towards the fruit, my girl took over steering the cart. Before I could stop her, she rammed the cart of another woman. I am not talking about a gentle bump people. I am talking about a running start kind of crash. One look at her and I knew...she did NOT have kids! I profusly apologized, pushed my cart around her, and gave my daughter her first and only warning. I made it back to the fruit and turned to select a few items for my girl for lunches for the week. As I was pulling items to purchase, my sweet, precious child has sat on the bottom of the cart and pushed it down to the meat counter. A woman walked up to me, (obviously a mom) and stated, "Mamm, are you missing a cart cause I believe your daughter might be over there." I took a look at where she was pointing and see my cart mysteriously moving of its own volition. SIGH! Laughing, the kind woman walks away as I walk down the aisle to retrieve my juvinille delinquint. At this point, I calmly point to the cart basket and order her in. We spent the next 10 to 15 minutes walking the store in complete silence. Somewhere around the paper aisle my dear child appears to be growing bored with shopping and proceeds to stick her arm out as far as she can so she can try to kncok stuff off the shelves. I managed to avoid getting her close to anything until I had to veer out of the way to avoid another mom in a bigger hurry than I. At that point, several sponges go tumbling to the store floor right in front of an older woman that seems to have forgotten that children can be a trial at times. At this point, I grow even quieter, if that is possible! AB manages to not further humilate me as we approach the check-out. At the check-out, I make her stand on the end of the cart and not move unless given permission to do so. She takes one good look at me and grins from ear to ear. While I wanted to continue being mad at her, that grin just broke my mean streak and I had to grin back. :) On the way to the car, my funny girl begans making plans for her play time outside. This is the point where she receives her consequences and I let her know that she has lost her outdoor playtime with her friends. By the time that we got home, she was in quite a mood and almost managed to make it up to her room before she broke out in sobs where she let me know just how ticked she was with a slam of her door. Thank goodness Daddy got home at the same time because he took over and listened to her complain through the sobs for the next 20 minutes. I love her. I love her unconditionally. I love her more than she could ever imagine. There are days however that I wonder if I can lock her up in her room till she is ready to go to college!