Houdini

I try not to write about my daughter too often because I don't want people to say "Does she have to write about her daughter ALL the time". It seems that I have been writing about her alot lately. But, well, I like her and it's my blog. So there :)

Today she, my mom, and I had a lunch date at McDonald's (ewww). Afterwards we went to Shoppers for a few minutes. I finished up first and left JJ with my mom while I went to Subway to get something for the Mister who was mildy hung-over this morning. When I was done done at Subway I started towards the car but they weren't there yet, which I thought was odd. I look over towards Shoppers and what do I see? My 4 year old daughter standing outside the door with a strange man. Mel pick your chin up off the keyboards and keep reading. I calmly but quickly walked over to them. Just as I was getting there they walked back in the doors. When I got to her I called her all three of her names, which we all do when we mean business. The man looks and me and says "Do you know her? Someone is looking for her." Holy crap. I still remained calm but I was deadly serious and not one bit happy.

At this point I have a death grip on the kid and I look inside the store. I see my mother, who was recently told she cannot work any longer because of her heart trouble, freaking out by the cash registers. She is very loudly saying "My grand-daughter! Where is my grand-daughter? She was just hear a minute ago!" Crap, I could hear the tears and the hysteria that were quickly about to take over her. Then all the poeple around her scatter and start looking for my child. My mother chooses that point, thankfully, to look up and see me. I point at JJ and my mom falls from near hysterics to "Thank god she's okay!" Kill me now.

I turn my attention to my daughter who has completely failed to recognize that anything is wrong. She looks up at me and says "Hey Mom, I found ya!" I'm still calm and not even thinking about bodily harm...yet. I bend down so I'm at eye-level with her and I say "JJ, I don't ever in my life want to see that again. Little girls cannot go outside by themselves. I left you with Nana and I expect you to stay with her. You scared, Nana." It went in one ear and out the other. Cue Nana, who comes over and hugs her and tells her she was so scared and so on.

I should mention that this was all the JJ's fault and there was nothing my mother could have done. The kids wanders and so do I.

I decide to end the freak show and drag the kid and the grandmother to the car. Grandmother is still shaking and is sitting in the front seat with her head in her hand. I tried to reassure her and then turned my attention to JJ. I again tell her what she did wrong...blah, blah, blah. I'm very serious which is a point she fails to notice. She picks the middle of my speech to hold up the crap bee toy she got at McDonald's and buzz it in my face. Wrong move!!! I grabbed the toy and told her to listen to my words very carefully.

I then proceeded to scare the shit out of her. Am I proud? Not so much. Will I get the mother of the year award? I was out of the running anyway.

Here is how is went down in a very short tone - "JJ I'm dead serious now and you had better listen to me or I will run over your bee. If you had walked into the parking lot you could have been run over by a car. Or a stranger could have taken you and you would never have seen Mommy, Daddy, Nana, or Grampy ever again. Now, I want you to sit her and think about how sad we would be if we never saw each other again." Then I closed the door and got in the car. I let her sit there in silence until we hit Fulton Ave. I looked back and she had her head down and was looking pretty sad.

I felt bad but whatever. It's not the first time she has taken off but hopefully it'll be the last. Nana felt so bad that JJ got to spend the rest of the afternoon at their house.