A Piece of Chocolate

My Sephora eye liner ran out about a week ago.  It's been driving me crazy.  I have several others, but no other is like my Sephora eye liner.  Victoria and I left school pronto today to pick up Christian and headed over to Rosedale.  "If you keep you hands to yourself I'll get you a treat," I bribed as I entered one of my most favorite stores.  They did.  But I was very quick.

I got them a cinnamon pretzel to split with a bottle of water.

I really pushed it (the whole situation) and headed into another store. 

They were beginning to get a bit rowdy, but then I remembered I needed a card.  We headed down to Hallmark - another of my most favorite stores - then they got really rowdy.  Climbing out of the stroller, grabbing musical cards, I was very uncomfortable and was rapidly losing (ok it was totally lost) control at that point.  I decided to get the hell out of there as fast as possible.

When I was checking out the lady starts to explain that if you purchase THREE cards you get way more frequent buyer points.  You don't reach the Platinum level by not knowing these things lady.  I said, "Yeah, I know but I just want to get them out of here."  She nodded as if to say, "We'd like them out too, thank you."

As I was quickly walking out the door pushing a minimun of 90 lbs (I brought the stroller in thinking this would make my shopping more peaceful - ha!) I heard Christian saying something but I was concentraing on the fact that I wished I hadn't come to the stupid mall in the first place. 

Then I looked down and he had his little hands cupped together and had a very sneaky smile on his face and said, "Look what's in my hands," and showed me a very NOT paid for piece of Lindt's chocolate. 

I stopped dead in my tracks and dropped to my knees and said, "You took that?!  You stole!  We need to get back there right away and apologize before she calls the police on you!"  And I walked soooo fast back to Hallmark.  I pulled him out of the stroller and the same lady happen to be standing at the front of the store and when I said, "Tell her what you did," she too dropped to her knees in front of him like I did.  She knew.

He said, "Mommy, you say.  Mommy say it for me."  Then the hysterical waterworks happened.  But I said you need to say you're sorry and we were not leaving until he did.  Eventually through the tears and the thick layer of snot and sobbing you could barely hear the, I...am...soweeeee!!!! 

He gave the chocolate back and I mouthed SOOO SORRY! She nodded and carried the chocolate away.  Clearly not the first time this has happened. Maybe they actually put the chocolate down low like that hoping that will happen and you'll come back in and actually pay. 

Outside of Hallmark (we were quite a spectical) I hugged him and dried his tears and kissed his cheeks while telling him he had made a bad choice but did his best to fix it.  He asked if the police were coming.  I told him I didn't think so.  Might as well keep him on his toes, right?

When I started walking neither of them said one word the whole way home.  Christian actually fell asleep.  Talk about emotionally exhausted. 

It was a learning experience for us all. 

I'm sure Victoria will tell anyone and everyone that will listen tomorrow at school and I bet Christian won't tell a soul.  

If he had to learn this lesson, at least it was just a piece of chocolate.