We learned a hard lesson this evening:  NEVER CAR SHOP WITH A 14 MONTH OLD WHO NEEDS TO BE PHYSICALLY ACTIVE OR EATING EVERY SECOND OF EVERY DAY!  Yes, that is the difficult lesson Corey and I learned tonight as we took Natalie with us to test drive a few vehicles.

Now mind you…I’m not new at this whole parenting thing.  It is not my first time around the block.  I’ve been here…at this age and stage…a time or two (or perhaps 4 times) before Miss Natalie.  So I truly was prepared…or so I thought.  Sippy cup, snacks, diaper bag loaded with distractions…I had all the makings for a successful outing.  I changed her diaper before we left and fed her a hefty portion of Mac and Cheese and raspberry yogurt for dinner before heading out on our expedition.

I was leery, but I really did think all would be ok.  Boy, did I under estimate my little girl’s ability to scream so loud that the sale’s guy at the dealership was concerned about the windows of every vehicle on his lot spontaneously combusting from the sheer decibel of her wailing!  She apparently had decided that no amount of bribery…not even mommy’s cell phone (her favorite “toy” in the whole world) was going to rattle her conviction that she DID NOT want to be car shopping tonight!  We tried to test drive a couple of vehicles but by the second stop, she was out of her mind angry and screamed so loud through the rest of the test drive that whatever noises we were supposed to be listening for…the “bad” noises…would have been music to our ears over the shrill of Natalie’s wrath in the back seat.

We high-tailed it back to the dealership, I threw her car seat and her flailing little self back in our car, Corey ran…and I mean literally ran….to let the guy know we would “think about it”, and did what all good parents would do after the hour of hell we had just lived through….we drove straight to the nearest drive thru and bribed our stubborn, tantrum-throwing, angelic monster with FRIES!!!  It worked like a charm too!  The second we hit the drive thru window she instantly stopped screaming.  She looked at me with a huge smile on her face…but did not make a peep for fear if she made a sound, the woman taking the order from daddy might not hear him correctly and she would not get her “nummies”.

We drove away with fries in hand and our little Miss Natalie was as pleasant as could be the rest of the ride home…..fry in one hand and a smirk on her face a mile long that spoke volumes!!

So I guess the bigger lesson learned here tonight:  get the damn fries BEFORE the test drive!  ;o)