Sam's Club

It is the little things we often forget. The things that make you laugh the most, and the things that make you realize as a Mommy that even simple tasks as grocery shopping do have an impact on your child's life.

Annabelle is quite the creative child. I have to think she got that from her Daddy because I don't think I am creative at all. But, she has learned quite well how to play pretend.

Over the past few weeks, she has started pretending to go to Sam's Club. She'll grab her grocery cart already full of stuff, and she'll ask me, "Do you want to go to Sam's Mommy, huh, do you?" So, off we go, to her bedroom, I mean to Sam's. We shop and find many things that have been left around for us to buy. We always buy books, and we typically buy her bright pink Crocs. And, if there is candy laying around, we'll buy that too. By the way, I don't just leave candy laying around, but she loves to "play" with her Halloween candy and pretend it is part of her usual pretend picnics. Would you believe the child does not open any of it without asking me first? She's got a lot to learn, doesn't she?

Then, after we've shopped, we hand the imaginary lady at the bedroom door, I mean Sam's Club door, our Sam's card and she rings everything up. Annabelle has an old Sam's gift card that she found in an old wallet of mine. This is what began our daily trips to Sam's Club in her bedroom. She'll always tells the cashier thank you. "Tank you Dam," she says. Translation: Thank you ma'am.

Then, we head to the hallway to see the next imaginary lady who checks off everything on our receipt. Annabelle insists that the imaginary lady give her baby doll or puppy dog a "diley mace" or however she says it. Translation: Smiley face. Half the time I cannot understand what the child is saying, so I spend 5 minutes saying, "Annabelle, I don't understand what you are saying. Will you say it again?" So, she says it over and over and over again until it finally clicks that the baby doll and/or puppy dog need a smiley face on their receipt.

The ladies at Sam's Club (in real life) have always drawn Annabelle a smiley face on the back of the Sam's Club receipt as we exit Sam's. She has always loved it, and she grins from ear to ear. The last few times she has gotten quite sassy with them. "I want a diley mace!" So, I've been working on teaching her to be more polite. She normally will tone it down and then ask again more politely.

So, today, she cracked me up with yet another imaginary trip to Sam's. She was all dressed up in her purple glass slippers, and she had her "Santa Claus babies" and "Ganny baby" in tote. I was in charge of the shopping cart. I pretended to be a Sam's Club worker who requested to take her picture at Sam's Club for free. She cooperated for a few shots.

The first shot was the best to me because she looks like a 50 year old woman in this picture, so I find it quite humorous. Why do I think she looks like a 50 year old woman? Her face looks chunkier than it is, and the way she is holding her lips makes her look like she has wrinkles. No offense to any 50 year old women! Unfortunately, I had forgotten to turn the flash on, so the picture itself is yellow, grainy and absolutely horrible. But, it wasn't anything that a black and white picture wouldn't solve!

Oddly, we often take pictures of these things to remember them, but if there are not words with the pictures, we'll look back one day, and think, "Oh, that's cute. Annabelle dressed up in her dress up slippers standing next to her baby dolls and shopping cart."

So, here you have it, Annabelle all dressed up in her purple glass slippers that Nonnie gave her for Molly's 2nd birthday last year, shopping at Sam's Club!