That just happened

"That just happened!" is one of my favorite Will Ferrell lines ever (Talladega Nights is so underrated! Dear Lord Baby Jesus). My husband and I say it all the time, after something crazy happens...like what happened to me today in the grocery store.

M threw a fit. Not a normal fake crying, whining until I distract her type fit. This was full on threat level red fit. We had just gotten home from a visit to my parents, the fridge was bare, we needed milk. She was cranky due to lack of sleep last night, but had just woken up from a 2 hour nap. I can always distract her with food at the grocery store so we went anyway.

The crank started - I gave her an apple sauce pouch. She was happy, sucking away, until "all done!" was shouted from her little mouth. That seemed to cue the beginning of the madness. I only had a handful of things to get so I rushed through the store, as the whining and writhing began to escalate. I put a block of cheese in the basket and she said "Cheese? Cheese!! CHEESE!!" Now looking back I should have just grabbed some string cheese, opened it up and she probably would have calmed down, but at the moment I tried to explain to her that "mommy can't open the cheese here! It will go bad!"

Of course she didn't understand that, so she started to try and get out of the front of the carriage.
I force her to sit down.
She swats at me.
People are looking.
She screams and yells.
I lift her out to put her down to walk.
Her legs go limp and she lays on the floor, in the middle of the aisle, writhing and screaming.
People ask if I need help.
I scoop her up quickly into my arms, but she won't straighten her legs in order to allow me to put her in the front of the carriage.
The screaming is louder.
I give up and actually lay her sideways in the front of the carriage.
She reaches up, grabs my scanner (the ones you can use to scan items while you shop - thank the effing lord for them, especially in this situation) and HURLS the thing down the aisle, barely missing an old lady.

WTF? My child? My sweet baby girl puts on display like this in the grocery store?

I did the only thing I could think of, and that was run. I ran and grabbed the thrown scanner, and then booked it towards the self-checkout, shouting excuse mes, and narrowly missing a display of soups. Here I am running through a busy grocery store, with a red-faced mad child screaming at the top of her lungs like I am torturing her, and everyone in the store is staring at us like I am a mad woman. Screaming child on Aisle 4!!!!

As we were checking out the screaming continued and then the grabbing of the gum on the racks at the check out began. I managed to make it out of the store in about a minute (again, thank God for those self scanner and self check out lanes!), and then fought the writhing M into her car seat. I was so angry and embarrassed that I had to take a few deep breaths before I got in the car...

And to my surprise it was quiet by the time I buckled up. I look back at M, who is silent and she looks at me and says "Mama, teeth...boo boo teeth...ow Mama!" And my heart melted. My little possessed child was back to her normal sweet self, and it turns out she was in terrible pain for the never ending teething she has been experiencing for the last 14 months. But why the display in the store? Was it really because of teething? Or is she just trying to get on my good side? Is this something that is going to happen all the time now? Don't they have something I can spray on her when she starts to throw a fit? Like anti-fit spray??

Just another case of Dr. Jekyl and Miss M.