Call of the Wild

I'm very excited that Matthew loves to go places and see people.  He is in high heaven whenever we leave the house.  Seriously, the guy gets super excited anytime I put him in his car seat.  Unfortunately for me Walmart seems to be a favorite stop.  WALMART!!!  AHHHHHH.

The other day we were running all over town searching for a reasonably priced filing cabinet.  Have you priced filing cabinets lately?  Ridiculous.  Just sayin'.  I finally gave up and pulled into the Walmart parking lot.  Then I did the unthinkable.  I plopped my 8.5 month old son down into that nasty shopping cart WITHOUT his seat protector.  Even he looked mortified.  He placed one little hand on the wire bar in front of him, and he reached all the way behind himself to place one little hand on the wire bars behind his back (white knuckle type of death grip), and he just looked at me as though I'd lost my mind. 

Oh golly the fear did not last.  As we began rolling into the store he began to realize the freedom:  The wind whipping through the bars, the ability to swing those legs unimpeded, the cool and flavorful metal to put that mouth on (don't worry, I stopped that one in a nanosecond).  By the time we reach the office supply department in the very back of the store he was so estatic that he simply couldn't contain his joy a moment longer and he let out the loudest, most high pitched, most gleeful, scream that I've ever heard emanate from his tiny body.  What followed was like slow motion.  The scream was so outrageous that I stopped frozen from sheer shock and surprise.  And then I giggled at the ridiculously happy look and smile on his adorable little face.  And then somewhere waaaay far away in another department (like toys or gardening) came an answer call.  Another baby screeched away in equally loud delight.  My jaw dropped as my dear son ANSWERED this call with another loud screek (and was rewarded with another far off screaming answer).  I quickly recovered my wits and began explaining the concept of inside voices.  Luckily for me he "got it" and his screeching stopped.  Unluckily for some other random mommy the other child did not.  I continued to hear those calls attempting to reach out to my son for quite some time as I loaded up our filing cabinet and made a bee line to the check out.

I'm sure that random person pushing that really loud baby just loves us (or maybe they just don't care since it was Walmart and all)!  Good thing Matthew plays innocent like a pro and we were able to escape without any fingers being pointed in our direction.

(Not a Walmart picture.  Just a random picture from a walk.)