Yesterday I took Sebo to Publix. It’s become a welcome weekly routine for us – I get to spend some daddy time with him and it gives Michelle a little break at home. He has started calling it Publix but he used to call it The Green Store because their logo is green. Future artist.
After we find a green-car-shopping-car to race around the store in, we head over to the bakery to grab his free cookie. Usually with sprinkles. It’s a nice little treat for him and a good distraction, because it takes him half the trip to eat it. Sometimes we hit the flower aisle and he picks a balloon-on-a-stick to carry around the store, and we return it before we check out. He’s really good about that sort of thing, he understands he can’t take everything home that he wants. So often we let him play with things just while we are at the store and that’s usually enough to satisfy him.
I love the way his mind works. I pointed out some bananas to him. “Those aren’t bananas,” he said. “That’s cheese.” I said it didn’t look like cheese. He said, “Because the cheese is pretending to be a banana.”
After watching a few episodes of Extreme Couponing we decided to start clipping coupons again. On the show, they buy $1,000 worth of stuff, enough toothpaste to outfit the soldiers in WWII, and pay about three bucks for all twenty cartfulls. On the other hand, I moonwalk down the aisle if I save fifty cents on a jar of barbecue sauce. Last night in the dog food aisle there was a coupon dispenser near the dog treats, and I pulled one off and handed it to Sebo. He looked at it and asked, “Is it mine?” I told him yes, and he took it and grinned. Then he folded it in half. Then in half again, and again. It wasn’t folding how he wanted, so he let out a little frustration grunt and started over. He was concentrating very hard, folding it over and over until he ended up with a little perfect square. He held it up proudly and said, “I’m done!” He was so happy with his folded little square, he showed it off to other shoppers the rest of the time were were in the store. And then when we were walking back out to the car, he unfolded it and asked to put it back in the envelope with the rest of the coupons. I asked him why, because he could keep it folded it he wanted to. He told me he wanted to use the coupon later.