"Look!"

I had my headphones in and was trying to - methodically - work through a shopping list for this weekend's festivities. Unfortunately, the clever Albert Heijn smartphone app only has the "sort items into route order" for its own supermarkets. Which means when I'm shopping at a their competitor Bas, I  have to mentally sort all the items into their locations on my own. Are balloons or broccoli at the entrance? Is the milk or the marsala midway through the store? And so on.

So there I stood, looking down at my list and trying to figure out what I needed to look for first so I wouldn't have to backtrack down the same aisle more usual. And then I realised someone was talking to me. A small someone, holding up a toy for my inspection. "Look what I have! It's an Ironman toy!" At least, that's what I think the little boy said, since his voice was a semi-muted until I pulled out my headphones. But since I have watched Ironman 1 and 2, I recognised the toy and smiled back at the eager face as he continued, "And there's a button here - this makes him go REALLY FAST!" "Cool! Is it new?" "Yes!"

And then off he wandered, still happily holding his bright red action figure. A lady who I think was his grandmother followed him, and gave me a polite smile. Of course, it could have just been the last person he'd tried to show the toy to. Maybe she hadn't been impressed, or maybe she thought *I* wouldn't be introduced to the beloved Ironman replica.

I've seen plenty of action figures over the years, and plenty of children (not many of them well-behaved) in supermarkets as well. But the happy combination of the two this morning made me smile, and it made the rest of my shopping much more enjoyable, knowing that not everyone was in a hurry or worried about the financial crisis....

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bowling Over Budgets

Image
Last week I wrote about when logic and frustration came together sweetly... and I replaced all of our mugs . I'm starting to give our bowls the Stink Eye this week. And I spent about an hour yesterday washing and inventorying all our baby bottles and parts. There's something immensely satisfying about actually taking action on a frustrating area of life. No matter how small. And I know in the grand scheme of things it. does. not. matter. that we have mismatched bowls and mugs. If we lived in a seaside cottage or sprawling farmhouse, I think it would be great fun to have whimsical mugs and cups and bowls that visitors would choose favourites from. When I visit my parents' house, I recognise the special mugs that my uncle sent to my brothers about ten years ago. The mugs sit next to The Cup that my mum has measured out ingredients in for her (famous) homemade biscuits for the last fifteen or so years. And there are new little mugs and bowls that they have picked up on trav
Read more

2020 Garden

Image
FEBRUARY :  The crocuses we planted last year started coming up outside, and inside, Pippin and I sat down to plan out our garden. Bloom helped by playing with seed packets as I tried to sort which seeds we had left and which seed packets I had kept because they were worth repeating. I also had charts from last year with lists of what I had planted, when, and whether it worked well or not. A few plants from last year, like my strawberries and honeysuckle, were still alive but dormant.  MARCH :   Every year I optimistically start seeds inside in February, set them out around March or April... and then the frost kills them. So this year I didn't even start the seeds until March. Pippin and I planted lettuce, morning glories, marigold, rucola (arugula), scarlet runner beans, and sweet peas - all seeds that had done well last year. And they all shot up happily in their little starter buckets within a few weeks.  By the end of March I dared to put the biggest and sturdiest plants outsid
Read more

Monthly Themes Printables - Science, Composers, Artists

Image
If you can't find something online... try making it yourself.  I love the canva.com website for making my own printables when I can't find what I need somewhere else. In this case it was all-in-one pages of 12 top composers, artists, and science unit studies for this year. I already had some printouts from various websites for those areas, but all the loose pieces of paper floating around and a lack of a central list meant that we weren't as consistent last year in our unit studies as I wanted to be. We listened to classical musical occasionally, checked out some library books on famous artists, and had nature walks and watched science movies, and that was all good! But this year, with Bloom and Pippin a year older, some extra structure should help us learn more effectively and have fun along the way. And since we're expecting a third little human to arrive at our home this summer, I am allll about organizing now while I still have energy and time! Another change I made
Read more