Is it bad to have murderous thoughts about your one and only beloved child? 

Yeah, I thought so.  But it can't be helped.

For the past week, Dave has been gone from about 8-6 every day working (for free, no job yet) for the Public Defender's office in Salt Lake.  So Sophie and I have had a lot of time on our hands, especially since I've decided that it's definitely better to get a shower in before Dave leaves and not waiting until, oh, 2 in the afternoon after she's gone down for a nap.  So I've tried to get us ready and out of the house in the mornings, just to get out of the house, and also because I can't really run errands during her nap anymore.  DCFS frowns on that.  Anyway, we've been all sorts of fun places, like the grocery store, Joann's, Target, Petco (just to look at the animals - it's our poor-man zoo), the library a couple times......you know the drill.  This morning's adventures were going to take us to Old Navy (I had some Old Navy cash that needed to be spent before tomorrow) and quickly to the library. 

I knew it was a bad sign when we walked in Old Navy and she immediately turned around and clung to me and wanted to be held.  But noooooooo.......I decided to go forward with it anyway.  So we walked around for awhile.  Let me rephrase that.  I walked around for awhile and she got carried around for awhile.  I finally got her to get down and walk for herself by pointing out the kids' clothes.  Good, right?  Wrong.  She then started taking random things down and dragging them around the store.  Not too bad, but not too good either.  I grabbed a few things from the kids' section for her (jackets on clearance, and we don't have one that fits for spring.  Also, she needed something to wear with her purple sweater that's just been sitting in her closet for 2 months).  Here's where the fun begins.  I carted her off to the dressing rooms so I could try on the 2 things that were actually for me.  She slowly made her way there with lots of disappearing behind clothing racks asking for kid snatchers to take her.  When we got in, I closed the door and she panicked.  (On a side note, I just looked up panicked on dictionary.com to make sure I spelled it right, and it came up with this:  a sudden overwhelming fear, with or without cause, that produces hysterical or irrational behavior, and that often spreads quickly through a group of persons or animals.   I don't know why but that made me giggle hysterically......or was it irrationally?)

So we're in the dressing room.  I'm trying on a shirt, my first item of two.  She's pacing like a caged animal and mad that I'm not holding her again.  So I try distraction.  "Sophie honey, do you want to try on your pretty jacket?  No?  Why not?  Look at the flower."  At this point, I'm trying to wrestle her coat off of her, but for some reason she's decided that she doesn't want to part with it.  Ever.  Again.  She's crying by the time I get it off her, and then refuses to put the jacket on, (lots of screaming and crying involved) to which I try to explain to her that we have to try things on before we take them home so we know they fit and don't have to come back.......blah, blah, blah.  She's on my lap (you'd think that would calm her, right?  Nope.), I'm now trying to shove her arms into the jacket as she screams and flails and hits wildly.  So I try a new method.  It's called the I'm-so-angry-at-this-child-right-now-that-I-can't-stand-her-touching-me-for-one-second-longer method.  So I put her on the ground and figure that she'll stop when I stop trying to make her do things.  Nope.  She now does the screaming and crying and dancing in place, which is really just stomping her feet really quickly because she's so mad that I put her down.  So I try method number three:  bribery.  I pull the fruit snacks out of my purse and explain to her that she has to stop crying in order to get them.  She goes silent for a moment, until she realizes that the fruit snacks are not in her hand and are not opened yet.  More screaming and crying commences.  So I opened the blasted things and shoved them at her, knowing that I'm going to get kicked out of the store soon if she doesn't stop.  Mostly because I'll be carted off to jail for child abuse because I want to beat her so bad.  With fruit snacks in hand, we beat a hasty retreat out of the dressing room (before even trying on item two), and made a quick stop in the children's clothing to switch a couple things.  At that point, she doesn't want to leave the children's clothing and I have to drag her to the line for checkout, because really, at this point, I just want to leave before it gets any worse.  After trying to pull half of the stuff off of their display shelves, she then starts to cry and scream again, only this time I can't pick her up because my arms are full of my purse, our two coats, and all the clothing.  So she clung to my legs and screamed.  Even squatting down next to her didn't help.  There came a point about 5 minutes after getting in line that I almost threw the clothes on the floor, picked up Sophie kicking and screaming, and flipped the bird on our way out to the cashier and people that were taking so long (there was only one person ahead of me who was already at the cash register when I walked up).  Seriously?  Can you not hear her screaming and crying and see her freaking out?  And you really want to argue over how much your coupon is worth and when it expires?  Get the heck out of my way, jerkfaces!  (Okay, so I really wouldn't flip the bird to anyone, but I might think it really hard in their direction)  The good news is, when we finally got up there, the cashier was really nice about it.  But even after I told her we were done and we were going to go get in the car and go home and not even stop at the library, she still wouldn't calm down and fought me tooth and nail the whole time I tried to put her coat on and dragged her to the car. 

The worst part?  As soon as she was buckled in she was silent.  The whole way home.  I wanted to kill her.