Consumerism blues

Hollis and I went to the supermarket yesterday to pick up a few things. I took her in her wheelchair stroller, and she was happy enough through one aisle, but she then decided to get out and walk behind and push it herself - very cute. Then things went a bit pear-shaped: she took off full speed, headed toward the toy aisle. I should mention my kid has never been the type to whine and complain about getting toys or goodies in any store, she just kind of relied on us to bring stuff into the house that she seemed to like.

I have counted myself lucky among the poor parents I would see in the stores with their kids throwing tantrums over Barbie, Bratz and Webkins: I thought we would somehow escape this natural part of growing up American. Alas, Hollis has finally realized she has consumer power, and she flexed that muscle at Stop and Shop. She went into the aisle and immediately spotted Dora and Elmo, her two favorite characters. Hollis then frantically waved her arms in a gesture suggesting she wanted everything in the displays while making her "I want" sound. She then picked up about 5 sets of Elmo plates and handed them to me, and went quickly over to a Dora telephone toy and tried to hand that to me too. I told her we weren't going to buy them, because we had plenty of stuff at home, and she took off again. She ran to the refrigerator case, and sat down in it as her protest. I finally was able to stuff her into her stroller again, but ended up leaving with far fewer things than I needed to get, but successfully managed not to cave into the tantrum - this time.