Quicker Than I Can Say 'Cat Cookies'

I scooted over to Trader Joe's this morning with the kids in tow. Apparently, my little ones hadn't run enough (make that any) laps in Sunday school. (What gives? The least you could do is spin them in circles for a while after you're done telling the story about Jesus and the "de-stiples".)

So my kids still had quite a bit of--what shall we call it--spunk. Not to mention boundless energy, the likes of which is highly incompatible with narrow produce aisles and the subtle cart-to-cart combat that transpires among otherwise docile sunday shoppers.

In my quest to be the fun and creative mom instead of the yelly and screamy and don't-touch-that!, don't-touch-each-other!, would-you-just-stop-touching-and-talking-and-generally-being-crazy!! mom, I made up a little game. It seemed brilliant at the time.

Super Spies!

Their mission? To be invisible. The closer they stayed to the cart, the more invisible they became. And as long as they stayed near the cart and didn't make a sound, no one would discover them and foil the mission! A successful mission would culminate in none other than--a beloved fruit bar snack.

See? Brilliant, right?

Wrong.

It was Lisa the check out lady who noticed my crazed behavior first--how I was turning in circles and repeating things like "where is she?" and "where on earth did she go?"

"What are you missing?" she asked.

"My daughter," I said, panic rising. So this must be what it's like to be the Man with the Yellow Hat. I swear George Dani was just right here!

So much for not being the yelly mom. "Dani! Dani! Come back here!" Yeah, I yelled it.

She scampered around the corner, three check-out lines away, giggling her way toward me.

"Dani, hon, what were you thinking? You are NEVER to run off by yourself!"

"But I was finding the secret passageway!" she explained. "For the super 'py game!"

Lessons learned?

1) Dani can disappear quicker than I can say Cat Cookies.
2) I should probably take a hiatus from creative-game-maker-upper mom and stick to the tried and true don't-you-dare-touch-anything approach.
3) Even if it means waiting more than a month to make it back to Trader Joe's, next time, I will GO ALONE.

The end.