It is always fun with a Josie!

Have you ever had to go into a store with a very hyperactive 8-year-old little girl who just spent 45 minutes deciding what shoes would look best with the blue and white striped t-shirt , bright orange skirt and yellow tights accompanied by two different colored socks with shoes that have two different shoe laces? Well, I had to today.... Yes, In a way I have my own Punky Brewster. In this case my Punky Brewster says ," Josie Power, " and ," All boys should be pulverized!" This is my daughter. My beautiful little daughter who recently I just looked at in wonder because her feet was now touching the ground where she sat just a few moments ago that last month her feet dangled and she thought it was funny. With total disregard to the fact that she can now touch the ground she sat there sipping on her water and feeding Chickie ,her stuffed, animal popcorn chicken ;which in a way I think that is cannibalism. So, we had a few phone calls before going out the door and I was already dressed and ready to go. We needed milk and juice and some meat. These were the THREE things that I wanted to get from the store. That was the ONLY three things I needed. I am talking on the phone to a friend who is pulling into work (well, trying to talk since my mouth is still sore and I feel like complete crap trying to open it) and trying to re-direct the kid to her hair brush several times. She wants to look " pretty" yet her hair is a tangled mess and she is putting these clips all over it. I asked her about a million times to go get her hair brush so I can help her and she yelled at me , " I CAN DO IT MYSELF!!! GEEEESH!!!!!!" I am pretty sure I have a teenager on my hands and don't even know it. We finally make it out the door where Josie exclaims that Chickie is to hot and needs to go back inside. I suggested he stayed at home in the first place since we already lost him once. She didn't listen to me then either. I look at the time and it is too late to go back. Chickie must stay with us for the ride and the little angel on his shoulder better make sure he is safe for that ride. The little devil on the other side is getting Josie in trouble with Chickie screaming at people in cars that drive by. " HEY WHERE YOU GET THAT FENDER? MARS!!!!?" I don't even know where she comes up with this stuff. She was , however, in a giggling fury and I thought it was funny. A squirrel starts to cross the street and Chickie starts to laugh. Yes, you read that right the chicken...the stuffed toy. It squeaks and if you move it really fast it sounds like he is laughing. Josie has mastered this skill and a some times I have wanted to make him disappear again (but won't). I asked Josie , " What is so funny?," and she is pointing at the squirrel who is desperately making his way across. He stops, he slopes down, he does some weird twisty routine with his tail that I think they secretly have antennas in them and are contacting their own kind in some weird squirrel morse code, " dudes... hey, I am stuck here .. wanna give a guy a hand?," .. or ," these rolling things won't let me go through and I am NOT ending up like Uncle Morty!" She promptly replied to me , " Chickie wants to know why did the squirrel cross the street?!" She started in an almost panic attack of laughter. I haven't seen her crack up this much in a long time. I , however, still didn't get the joke but laughed along with her. We get onto the bus where she asks the first lady she sees why her shirt is purple and her pants are blue because they don't match yet she obviously didn't see how she dressed herself today or she needs better prescriptions for her glasses. I quickly sat Josie and Chickie down where she kept staring at a little person in front of us. When I say little person I mean adult size little person. I have seen him a number of time on the buses and he is a young guy always with a back pack on and I think he may go to Purdue. He seems like a really nice guy. Josie keeps looking at me,at him, and back at me. Finally , the guy cracks a smile and says, " Yes, you are taller than me," and Josie starts laughing and the guy says, "cute kid," and I am just sitting there in silence waiting for that time to ring the bell. At this point I am hoping that this bell gives her guardian angel another set of wings because he is going to need them. We get into the store where this kid is giving his mother what for on the fact that he don't like " no stinkin' bananas" and refuses to eat them. She tells them that is good for him and " you will eat them and like them " where Josie chimes in , " Geeze lady , give it a break will ya?".... *sigh* I love my kid and she is a really great little girl but she has those moments that embarrasses you or makes you want to crawl under the apples and try to magically camouflage yourself in hopes that no one notices you are there . We walk around the store and we wind up getting hotdog buns which is immediately smashed under Chickie's butt and some meat. I at least got one thing accomplished so far! I wind up going straight to the juice aisle because " MOMMY I NEED APPLE JUICE!" and in a split second she is running in front of me , little curls bouncing up and down , shoelaces floating in the breeze, Chickie bounces up and down happily squeaking.... We get apple juice. We get fruit punch . We get lemonade, we get those fizzy things from Kool-Aid you put inside water , we get some of those juice packets you put in water to make punch and stuff ... We walk over to the yogurt aisle where that banana kid and his mother are there still arguing but this time about strawberry yogurt and how disgusting it is and that she will "not feed you that crap!". Okay, so before she was trying to shove bananas down his throat and now that he is requesting yogurt she is taking that health food away from him because that makes sense! We go to the front counter where the woman is trying to tell me that what I have on a coupon is not what I bought when clearly it is. She then has to get four other people over there to investigate the coupon. In the meantime, I have a little girl who is getting on and off the cart, on and off the cart, showing me different products including bubble gum and telling me what the ingredients in all of them are, opening up my purse and taking out all my cards and reading out loud my information while I am trying to nicely argue with the cashier lady. Josie was HYPER today! She has gone since she got up and has not stopped. I think she ate a bag of sugar while I was asleep and threw away the evidence. Either that or a mob of aliens came by dumped some weird toxic hyperactivity waste into her body and sped away as a cruel joke. While all of this is going around and she decides she is going to take my coupon Josie points out to the guy who is bagging our groceries that his fly is down and that he shouldn't wear pink underwear because he is a boy. The bagger quickly zippered up his pants and slowly in a hushed manner walked away where I was left bagging my own groceries. Josie then asked the lady if she had a boyfriend and she said that she didn't. Josie said, " Good you don't need no stinkin' guy you are a beautiful , independent woman and we love you just the way you are!," then runs towards the quarter machines yelling about a tattoo she really wants badly. I have no idea where any of that came from, I think some discovery show or something she watched lately has influenced her thoughts or again, it is those damn aliens. I got another " cute kid " compliment as I walked out the door, re-bagged my groceries and went to the bus stop . She listened to me really well about things and sat there eating her popcorn chicken. She helped me carry two bags onto the bus and the same two bags home. She got inside and exclaimed, " that is refreshing," as she sipped her water on the couch. I love my kid, it is always an adventure. I know that I will never be without adventure as long as I have her. That is for sure!