Dom loves to join me on my grocery store trips. Secretly, I love to have him along, although I do grumble about it to get extra help from Russell (But, honey – you have to do the dishes, scrub the toilet and wipe down the baseboards…I am going to have Dom all day!).
Dom loves to people watch. He also loves food, so an outing to the supermarket is Heaven to him. We have a few obvious kid-friendly favorites. Harris Teeter and Trader Joe’s both give out balloons to kids. Harris Teeter even throws in a cookie, but Dom seems to prefer the Trader Joe’s stickers.
At Trader Joe’s, Dom is able to push a kiddie cart around the store. There is, of course, a giant pole attached to it so a parent can prevent any disasters due to runaway carts. Because Dom is allowed to move around, pushing the cart…and he is allowed to get the stuff from the shelves and put it into the cart…Trader Joe’s is his favorite store.
Today, we played the yellow game. Basically, I told Dom to tell me whenever he saw something yellow. All went great through the first half of the store. “Mommy – yellow cereal! Butter!” As we got to the produce department, though, something strange happened.
Suddenly, we were no longer playing the yellow game. Instead, it warped into a talk-to-the-fruit game. “Hello, Nanas!” Dom screamed at the bananas. “Ooh…hi, apples.” As people around us watched, smiling (or wondering whether the boy was perhaps slightly off), Dom greeted the pineapples, oranges, and kiwis.
Interestingly enough, not a single vegetable grabbed his attention. Not that that is surprising. This agricultural communication apparently worked two ways. As we stood in line at the register, Dom told me that the blueberries wanted to go home with us.
Who am I to dismiss the weird talent of the fruit whisperer? The blueberries came home with us.