Thanks to all who sent your good wishes. It definitely made me feel better (especially the joke from melanie) and was much more palatable than my current Gatorade and saltines diet.

AJ and I finally ventured out of the house to stomp around in the six inches of snow we got a couple of days ago and to visit our local Jewel for new supplies of sick people food. AJ is having another bi-polar day today, going from �May I help you please, Mommy?� to volcanic tantrum in nothing flat. I should have known we were going to be in trouble when it took him 10 minutes to select the appropriate shopping cart. Jewel has a few shopping carts rigged up to look like trucks (in case you don�t know what I�m talking about, here is a picture of a drunk girl trying to sit in one). The first one apparently didn�t have the correct style of car horn and AJ would not deign to drive it. The second one was piled high with snow, so I vetoed it. We went inside the store and could find no more. I could see a tantrum coming on, so in order to avert it and actually get my shopping done, we went back out into the parking lot for cart #1. AJ proclaimed it acceptable and aside from the extra 10 minutes sprinting around the parking lot in the cold, all was well. AJ was actually pretty happy for most of the trip. He entertained himself by reading the numbers off all the price tags and beeping his horn every time he saw a word that he knew. It wasn�t until we got to the checkout line that all hell broke loose. First he freaked out when he saw a basket was on the floor in front of the conveyor belt, thus effectively blocking his access for helping to take the groceries out of the car. He tried yelling, �Get out of the way! That�s MY spot!� at the hapless basket, but when that didn�t work, he tried kicking it until I finally realized what was happening and moved it for him, narrowly averting a disemboweling of the gum display (I credit the lingering illness for my slowness this morning � I�m usually more on top of things). All was well for a couple of minutes until a little boy about AJ�s age wandered around the far side of our cart. If you looked in AJ�s eyes at that moment you could see the paranoid delusions exploding in his head. �NO! THAT�S MY CART!� he yelled, pointing a menacing finger at the small, blond moppet on the other side of the cart. Had AJ been a cartoon, his eyes would have been rolling wildly and steam would have been pouring out of his ears. I�m fairly certain that if the cart had not been securely blocking the aisle between the two boys that a knock-down, drag-out fight would have ensued. Instead, frustrated AJ simply began a tantrum of epic proportions which continued out the door, all the way to the car and all the way home until suddenly, mid-squall, AJ turned it off to chirp a cheerful, �Hi, Daddy!�

I would just like to make a public apology for all my years of under-the-breath cursing at moms with kids in front of me at the supermarket. I really had no idea what the whole operation entails. If it is any consolation to those I�ve wronged, I am humbly doing penance.

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