Another Cooper and Bart moment

Another store has banned us from their premises. And again it would be because of Cooper, Bart’s child.
Last week my parents went to Korea to interact with their other child, my sister and her kids. Karlee, my sister and her husband went on a trip to China so they paid my mother’s ticket fare to have her come over and babysit while they were away. My father was not about to sit home during that trip so they both flew over there for 2 weeks. I was a LITTLE jealous of the international diversion in their life (see previous Life Changes post) and I was also a little envious that they got to see Jasper, who is Cooper’s counterpart in the Zollinger family. His smile just makes everybody laugh.
I had several weeks of vacation time left so I decided to take a week while they were gone and spend the time with Cooper. I truly have no delusions about the hardest job in the world: Staying at home with beloved children. I bow to all mothers that stay at home.

Cooper and I were getting along fine as long as I followed his schedule. I do realize it was a big change for him to stay home rather than break the day up by going to Grandma’s. Since we were home I was able to spend some wonderful quality time with him and the Lego Star Wars on Playstation II. (I challenge any mom out there to level 2.)
I finally got him to go out shopping with me one day.
“Cooper, we are going to look for Christmas decorations and Clorox bleach and floaties for the pool.”
“OK, I’ll go to the store with you because I want to get something for me too.”
“What do you need?”
“A new toy or something.”
“What new toy?”
“I don’t know. I’ll just look around.”
Red alert! Bart alert! Bart has gotten to this kid. He is going to LOOK AROUND to see if there is ANYTHING he can buy. I try to counteract the spoilage going on all in one day. I drag him through three stores telling him we don’t just buy something at every store we go to. I endure the kicking and screaming and the fake tears. I can’t believe that I actually stop in at Target telling myself this is the last store.
This time he wants to get in the cart. We are walking down the office supply aisles looking for crafts or something. I don’t remember. I don’t remember much of anything except the next few moments of the day.
My blonde, blue eyed, exceptionally cute child morphed into something very much like the adult baby monster from the Quizno’s sandwich commercials. His face puckered up and the light went out his eyes and he said “Mom, if you don’t buy me a toy, I am going to kick-your-ass!”

Neither of us got a toy at the store. But I did look at the other mother's cute 4 year old son and wonder if he was for sale.