"My Bike"

For Juliet's first birthday, we got her a little red wagon.  She loved it so very much, so we wanted to do something similar for her second birthday.  After a little bit of pondering, we decided to get her a tricycle. Because Juliet will officially turn two while Ray is gone, we chose to give the tricycle to her early.  I wanted to just buy it and surprise her, but Ray insisted that we take her to the store to properly fit her with the appropriately-sized trike.  (I'm still not convinced that tricycles really have different sizes like bikes, but that's not a battle that was worth fighting.)

So we loaded up Anna, picked Juliet up from school a little early, and headed to Toys R Us to pick out the perfect tricycle.  I posted on Facebook that this was a rookie mistake, and that is an understatement.  Upon entering the store, Juliet wanted to play with every single toy we passed.  Thankfully, she didn't want to take each one home, but she definitely wanted to play with each one.  That, of course, meant that the 200-yard walk to the rear of the store took quite a while.  After ten short minutes in the store, Anna lost her baby mind and began screaming to be fed.  I tried to stall for as long as I could, but that wasn't very long.  I finally just had to leave Ray and Juliet with the tricycles and head out to the car to feed Anna. 

As I was finishing up feeding Anna, Juliet and Ray came out of the store with her brand new, shiny, pink Radio Flyer tricycle.  She was on the trike, and he was pushing her, and it was just this amazing, perfect scene - truly, something Andy Warhol might have painted.  Our angelic first daughter with her proud father, bonding over a classic toy.  They got to the car, and Ray asked Juliet to get off the tricycle so that we could go home with her brand new tricycle.

And then all hell broke loose.  Our toddler lost her mind and began screaming and crying, "My bike! My bike! My bike!"  Ray tried to reason with her, explaining that the bike was coming with us, that she could ride it as much as she wanted as soon as we got home, that it was - indeed - hers.  Her tantrum was one of epic proportions.  (To be honest, I've only seen her throw one more tantrum like that, and I still have a little PTSD from that four-hour ordeal.)  She was absolutely inconsolable, and no amount of explaining or reassuring seemed to make a difference.  Ray got frustrated.  I got frustrated.  Juliet continued to scream.  In the middle of the parking lot.  Like a maniac.  Finally, I said, "That is enough!" and jumped out to see if I could make a difference.  Ray cautioned me, "There are probably cameras all over this parking lot."  (I was reminded of an amazing story my friend Susie tells about an episode she had with her oldest daughter in the parking lot of Quincy's Wal-Mart wherein Susie talks about how glad she is that there were not cameras in parking lots then.) 

I loaded Juliet into her car seat (against her will).  I got her buckled in (against her will).  And I put the tricycle in her lap.  Obviously, the tricycle was too big to fit in her lap and was heavy.  Still crying, she said, "Help please! Help please! Help please!"  Using every ounce of patience I had left, I managed to convince her that I could help her by putting her bike on the seat next to her.  The entire ride home, she kept repeating, "My bike" but at least she wasn't screaming it. 

I am so very glad that Juliet likes her present.  And I am glad to have learned a very valuable lesson about Toys R Us.  We will never darken the doors of that store with children in tow again.  Ever.