Someone pin a frickin’ medal on me. Seriously. I just stepped out of Super Target with the most ill-behaved three year old in history and I feel like I deserve a reward for surviving the battle without losing my cool.

It was all planned out. A shopping trip with the added enticement of a Shrek popsicle for good behavior. When we walk into the store Liv is in fine spirits. But soon her bad-store-self starts coming out… First she wants to open and close a Rubbermaid organizer with clasps too tight for her hands to control. (Translation: She begins shrieking each time she can’t open or close the lid, thus flustering me as I search for decongestants and cough suppressants in the pharmaceutical section.) So I begin to speed up my shopping; I whip through the condiments aisle for honey, then head for dairy creamer at a clipped pace. Somewhere around the aisles of paper goods, Livia begins to open the honey jar—ack, can you imagine the mess?!—and is sternly warned against peeling off the inner seal. Then starts the back and forth of disobedience regarding the honey. At this point, I’ve successfully found the creamer and am now in a rapid-fire hunt for chocolate, which will be consumed out of necessity one minute after Livia’s bedtime. Now the real fit, complete with loud dramatic shrieks of pain, commences. I couldn’t help but reflect on the ridiculous irony of Liv, stretched out in the grocery cart, complaining that there is TOO MUCH FOOD IN THE CART, I CAN’T GET COMFORTABLE!! If she had maintained one lick of rational thought I might have explained that the cart is for food, not her big-almost-four-year-old body, but alas…

So I’m finally at the checkout lanes, ignoring with all my might the full-on tantrum taking place in my red cart. The folks behind me seem to be gasping in horror at the freak show we’re putting on and I resist the urge to make a wise crack about how this is a good reminder to use birth control only because they look to be beyond birth control years anyhow. My self-awareness escalates and I do actually want to crawl into a hole due to embarrassment, but I’m determined to play it cool and ignore my child’s fit. The young cashier has the audacity to wish me a good day and I escape through the front door to the sound of my daughter sobbing dramatically, “I want to be a GOOD girl!” Truly, she knows what’s coming.

The bomb drops. This time, it’s from my lips.

“No Shrek popsicle for you. And when we get home, you’re going straight to bed.”

Now, about that medal…