"where's mummy?"

With our new/first ever weekly budget in mind, I made my way to the local supermarket 'Sainsburys' to take care of the weekly shop. Fantastic, easily enough done one thinks. So I strolled to Sainsburys armed with my lengthy shopping list ready to take action. I proceeded to the trolley area which to my annoyance involved making my way through the myriad of middle aged mums, all wearing ¾ pants, (which we all know are stunning) trying to put their trolleys away while at the same time prying one offspring from the trolley and stopping the other from running out the door. Madness!! Sainsburys should employ a 'shopping with kids Tuesday' policy where as the title suggests children under the age of 18 are only allowed in the supermarket on Tuesdays, perfect. And Yes, I hear all the parents saying “well you obviously don't have kids” and “just wait until you have children.” well you're right, I don't have kids, and when I do I will “Know all about it” however I don't need to have children to know that ¾ pants are just wrong.

After a few internal rolls of the eyes I made it to the trolley area only to find I had to pay 1 pound to use the trolley, hang on....wait a minute..... I thought supermarkets wanted folks to come in and buy stuff. Well that 1 pound (which I later found out was refunded once you returned the trolley, some security thing) wasn't in the budget, so I had to resort to fitting the weekly shop into a carry basket which was free to use, and much easier to steal.

I made my way round the various isles sticking strictly to shopping list, feeling quite proud of myself for the achievement. (When the highlight of your day is getting dressed, the benchmark for achievement is quite low) Apart from the initial shaky start and a few “oh you go...no i'll go...oh you go..no i'll go” situations, it had been a good shop. However my good shop soon turned interesting/annoying.

A crazy loud scream erupted from the lungs of a child behind me, followed then by a laugh “haha” and then another scream, and another laugh. This kid wasn't hurt he was just having fun. Instantly I was really annoyed, his scream ripped straight through me, I could feel my ear drums adjusting to counteract his aural onslaught. I wanted to hold him down and scream in his ears, but I knew that would probably cause trouble with him being only about 4 and me being 28 so I did it my mind, oh yes, I got him back good.

So kids will be kids, and after internally teaching him a lesson I could eventually see the funny side. However what happened next literally had me standing like a possum caught in the headlights. So picture this, Kid starts screaming in supermarket, I can think that most parents would reprimand him with either a loud way over the top lecture the one that embarrasses everyone in the supermarket, or with a discrete tug of the arm and the old “wait until you get home” whisper in the ear. Both of which probably doing the trick. Not so these parents, they had a different method. Dad leisurely strolled behind the kid softly speaking his name, “Liam?”... “Liam?”.... as if he was trying to find him in a game of hide n seek. Liam of course didn't even acknowledge his existence, didn't even turn his head to make eye contact with his dad. “Alright” I thought, “so dad clearly needs a bit of coaching but mum's close by she'll know how to handle him” next thing mum in a soft inquisitive tone starts saying “liam, where's mummy?”.... “Liam, where's mummy” are you serious? “where's mummy?”..... Liam can see you! your right there in front of him asking him stupid!! It's apparent she's learnt that when a child is misbehaving, you should ask them a really stupid question and that will refocus them and change the behaviour. This would make law enforcement so much easier, “Osama, where's your nose.” I couldn't believe what I was hearing, It was like they had read 'The Holistic guide to parenting' or something to that effect, I'm no parent but I haven't seen that on Super Nannny. By the way Liams response to mum was to ignore her and carry on doing what he was doing.

Anyway I continued finishing off my shopping in total disbelief of what I had just witnessed. I got to the checkout at the same time as Marigold and Harmony, by this stage Liam had stopped with the screaming but was now ransacking the confectionary stand, you can guess how Marigold and Harmony dealt with that.

I left the store still baffled but smiling, wondering how that technique would go down at home next time Alisha and I don't see eye to eye. “Alisha, where's Rob?”.... “Alisha, where's Rob?”