When shopping with a 2yr old, all bets are off

The husband has a cousin who lives here in the city and is an eye doctor by profession. Due to busy schedules on both sides, we rarely see each other outside of major family holidays, but on occasion we visit him for “discounted” services.

The husband was in desperate need of new glasses. His current ones were going on 4 years old, whopper-jawed from too many wrestling matches with Tyler and had a wicked crack in the left lens near the bridge. If his glasses were a relative, they’d be the out of work, grabby uncle Moe no one wants to stand next to.

We threw caution to the wind and dared to take Tyler, seeing as this was family, even though that little common sense voice in the back of my head told me I should seriously rethink that plan. Upon our arrival we began perusing the selection, trying on different pairs and eliminating ones that made the husband look too “nerdy”.

Almost immediately I deeply regretted my decision to bring Tyler. Everything was at a 2 yr olds level; perfect for little grubby hands. I’d turned around and he would be double fisting two pair of glasses, clenching them tight, twisting them around. Crunching them between his little stubby fingers.

“Ack! Tyler, put those down!”

But as soon as I’d pry one pair from his hands, he’d yell, “How about these mommy?!” and wrench another pair from the display.

The finale was when he knocked an entire display section of glasses off the wall, hurdling about 30 pairs of glasses onto the floor right in front of the sales person.

My face turned 3 shades of crimson red. I was mortified.

I quickly placed myself between Tyler and the temptation and began scooping up glasses, apologizing with every pair. The sales person, in all honestly, could have been a tad bit more forgiving, her icy stares and curt “it’s ok” communicated that it was anything but “OK”. Obviously she did not have kids of her own.

After the clean up, I herded Tyler over into a corner with a few waiting chair and some out of date magazines. I resolved that we would both sit right here and wait for the husband’s cousin to avoid any further complications or embarrassing situations. I plopped him down in the corner chair and growled out “Sit!” through my clenched teeth. While I forced a smile and glanced around the store to see how much of a scene we’d caused.

Too much.

The husband moseyed over and took a seat to the left of Tyler, while I sat on his right; deploying a technique we had long since mastered. When waiting with a toddler, never leave an open avenue; surround him, block off all means of escape and remove any opportunity to cause trouble.

Maybe we should add “avoid eyeglass stores” to that mastery list...