Buggy

I had thought that as Joseph is now a confident walker that there would be times when I could take him out without having to bother wrestling the buggy into the back of the car, wrestling it out again and then wrestling him into it. I do a lot of wrestling now, it seems to come with the territory. I have to wrestle him into his clothes and I have to pin him down on the floor to change his nappy sometimes. I've even had to wrestle him into his cot when he really doesn't want to go and this usually results in lots of cuddly toys being thrown on the floor and anything else within reach.
We popped out shopping at the weekend. We did not take the buggy.
We were looking for a pair of cycling shoes for Andy and some new cot bedding for Joseph. His current blankets are just too small to be of any practical use. It really did surprise me just how much places charge for a square of edged fleece that they call a childs blanket. I refused to pay that much and in the end we bought some fleece from a fabric shop and I will edge it myself.
The really big mistake we made was to go into Toys R Us. They do some baby stuff including bedding and they're not the most expensive place so it seemed a good idea. It really isn't when you've got a 21 month old who isn't restrained and a man who has a bit of a bad back. Joseph ran about and generally got under feet, which was bad enough, but then he found the aisle with the cars.
The proper toy cars, the ones that are big enough to get inside and play with the steering wheel. There were toy motorbikes and a toy tractor complete with trailer. Joseph loved all of these and really really really didn't want to stop playing with them.
Have you ever tried to extract a toddler from one of those cars when he really doesn't want to? We had to one before when we were at a garden centre and they had the kiddy trolleys that had the same plastic car shape underneath the basket. At least on that occasion we had been out in a quiet car park and not in the middle of a busy shop.
Joseph did not want to go. I could not keep hold of him and it looks pretty bad if you're walking along dragging a small screaming child along the floor by one arm. It also looks bad if you are holding a toddler having a tantrum under your arm like some sort of outsize clutch purse. That hadn't been intentional, but he just would keep wiggling and kicking. Andy managed to get him sat up on his shoulders which kept him a little more out of trouble, but didn't stop him crying and didn't do Andys back any good at all. Joseph kept trying to twist round and reach out to me, but I don't know why. When I'd been holding him he'd been very unhappy and I'd had the brunt of the kicking and flailing elbows.
We left quickly, vowing never to make the same mistake again. When I met Andy for lunch yesterday and we popped into a fabric shop I had the little terror safely tied down in his buggy. Andy made the mistake of letting him out and chaos briefly ensued until we wrestled him back into the buggy and got the straps done up. No, it's going to be a long while yet before I decide it's safe enough to go anywhere sans buggy, a long long while.