Lil Miss and I are at the grocery store. This is always a dicey thing because she has a tendancy to get a little demanding at the grocery store. We always talk about behavior before we go in. Sometimes she tells me what she wants (I get her one thing of her own every trip, just like my mom did for me) and sometimes she’s not sure. Other times, she wants many things and we have to whittle it down. Good exercise in patience, negotiation and priorities. She learns from it to, I’d bet.

So we’re at the grocery store and I can tell this trip could go either way; she’s a bit amped up and unsure as to what she wants, changing her mind every couple of seconds prompting me to remind her she only gets ONE thing. Most often, its a toy. Okay, yeah I’m a softie and sometimes I end up getting her a thing AND a treat. It depends on how smooth the trip goes.

She’s pretty excited, and I’m trying to keep her focused. First she wants fruit. Not a treat, so of course I buy fruit. I usually put my foot down about buying more than two kinds depending on what kind she wants. She has a tendency to like the expensive stuff.

So then we’re walking along, chattering about this and that, when she asks if we can get some ice cream. “Sure!” says I. So far as I’m concerned, ice cream is one of the four food groups: protein/dairy, grains, fruits/veggies, and yummy. Its also a good time to help her with patience and anticipation: the ice cream aisle is at the end of the labyrinth and during our walk she invariably wants something else. One reminder “do you want that thing, or ice cream?” and she usually puts it back. So getting ice cream is actually a developmentally enriching exercise you see.

We get to the ice cream aisle and pick out our flavors. She generally only likes vanilla which is good because I only like to buy brands that use sugar rather than HFCS. I don’t give a shit whether or not HFCS is the devil or not, I just hate how addictive it is. And it makes ice cream seem gummy to me. I don’t like it. I want my daughter to have good taste is all. So she gets her vanilla (Turkey Hill natural brand) and I get my coffee flavor (same brand) and we start on our way. I always try to move quickly after getting the ice cream because at the end of the aisle no matter what store you are in, there are the toppings, cones and whatnot which pretty much ruin any chance I have at acting like ice cream isn’t a peripherally dairy-enhanced sugar-bomb. Lil Miss is now six years old and I have been successful all her life at not letting her know those things even exist on that aisle. Don’t get me wrong, she knows about toppings, sprinkles, cones and syrups, she just didn’t know they could be got at the store.

Well guess what she discovered that day? M’yep.

“Oohhh!” she said while I was looking carefully at the wahp biscuits and wondering if I should get them or stop being lazy and make my own. By the tone of her voice and how it trailed away from me as she said it, I knew what had happened. I looked up and saw her slowly moving towards that shelf at the end of the frozen treats freezers. Her arms outstretched, eyes huge and dark like some character from an anime, she was clearly enraptured as she moved, almost zombie-like, to the flame of the sundae-makings. I winced.

“maaaahhhm… loooooook!” she said dreamily with her hands carresssing a box of cones. The kind which every kid looks longingly at until they finally get to taste one. I believe the brand name is “tastee-cone” and once you bite into it you realize your ice cream would have been better served atop a styrofoam cup. I doubt there is any disappointment for an ice-cream-lover quite like biting into their first tastee-cone.

There was no way in hell I was buying those deceptive cones.

“uh, Lil Miss, I’m not getting any of that stuff”

“but mom!”

“no. We don’t need any of that stuff.”

“oh. Okay.” She slumped, and turned to come back to the cart. But before she did, something caught her eye, a little higher up the shelves.

“MOM!” she yelled

“What?” I said, inching my way out of the aisle, hoping her easy defeat was all I’d have to deal with but I might as well have been hoping the wind wouldn’t blow in January.

“Look! What is this?” she tilted her head, leaned forward and started reading aloud.

“Ice Cream M-m?”

“Sound it out” I said on autopilot and moved closer to find out what fascinating thing I was about to be begged for.

“Ice Cream Mm-aa-gick! Ice Cream magic!” she said triumphantly. “oooo! Mom I WANT THIS! I WANT ICE CREAM MAGIC!”

I walked up, looked at the box of “ice cream magic”. ON the box were two kids clearly in ice cream ecstasy. The object in question appeared to be a plastic ice cream cone. What the hell? I plucked it off the shelf, turned it sideways and read.

“oh, this is an ice cream maker”

“I KNOW! I KNOW! YOU PUT THE ICE CREAM STUFF IN IT AND SHAKE IT TO MAKE ICE CREAM! CAN WE GET IT! CANWEGETITPLEASEPLEASEPLEASE!!!PLEEEEEEEEZ!?”

She was actually jumping up and down.

The price was $20. Jayzuz tap-dancing cripes. It was clearly cheap China-made crap worthy of a late night commerical by Ronco. It made aproximately two scoops of ice cream. You had to shake it. I could just see this. We’d put the stuff in, shake the shit out of it until our arms were sore and then open it,  and find a goopy mass of whatever. Meanwhile Lil Miss would have gotten bored (and who would blame her?) and expect me to finish it up. There was also the distinct possibility it would leak or be broken when we took it home. Or she’d get a little too exuberant and drop it on the floor. Or the wall. OMG the mess that would make. At the very least, we could get the SAME effect by using objects around the house we already own. Lastly, we HAVE an electric ice cream maker. So this thing? Pointless, apt to be disappointing (more so than the tastee-cones) and possibly a huge mess.

No. Way.

I’d buy a real crank-style ice cream maker before I’d buy this cheap plastic junk.

So you can imagine the drama that ensued when I said no. The tears, the protests, the arguing, the yelling. All in all, not as bad as I thought since there was no planking on the floor and no attempts to get me in a headlock. Either she was tired or just feeling more mature.

That was four days ago. Since that time she’s been to a birthday party where she got pinata candy, stitched together a Hello Kitty doll of her own, and had at least one bowl of ice cream per day.

Today, I got a text from J:

“what’s ice cream magic?”

ROTFL