Not All There

This past weekend I went shopping for groceries sans Aiden.  I've been able to do that the past two weekends and it's been fantastic.  Aiden is generally not difficult in the grocery store, but I still feel like I'm able to focus on comparing products better when he's not there getting bored with the lack of cart-movement.

Anyway, on this past trip, I was headed to the cash register with a cart load when I hear a baby start crying.  Shortly thereafter a woman starts yelling at the top of her lungs.  I couldn't really tell what she was saying, but she sounded angry.  I was getting closer to the source of the sound when I saw who it was.  They had entered the store at the same time as me.  It was a two-year-old girl and a woman I assumed was her mother, although she looked to be in her 40's.  Since it's not impossible to be a mother in your 40's, I was wondering if it was hers or if it was a grandchild.

The woman was walking around the produce section a little haphazardly while I was in the same area.  The little girl followed her, but the woman barely looked back to make sure the child was with her.  I was thinking about how I am constantly looking back for Aiden, until I start to get dizzy and I just take his hand.  At one point, the little girl grabbed an apple off the shelf and took a tiny bite.  I was waiting for the woman to notice, but since she rarely looked back to check on her, she didn't see the kid eating the apple for a quite a while.  When she finally did, she walked up to her, asked for the apple and took a bite.  Not quite honest behavior, but to each their own.

Back to my trip to the register and the screaming - I parked my cart before the aisle that the woman was in because I finally found the batteries.  (Why does it seem like every store has a different location for those?)  The child was upset, probably bored, and crying.  The woman was YELLING at her, "I know, I know!!  You're bored!  We've been in this store WAY too long!!  I'm trying to hurry but you're not helping me!"  None of those words were things that would aid the situation.  If anything, as the mother of a two-year-old, I know the yelling and screaming will just make the toddler more stressed and less likely to stop crying. 

At this point, I was starting to wonder about the mental capacity of the woman.  She picked up the little girl and was trying to get her into the cart seat.  She was yelling, "I'm going to put you in the cart!  I know!  You barely fit! But you want to sit here!!"  I really think the woman was not all there. 

That got me thinking.  Anyone can procreate.  Who gets to decide if the parents are well enough to care for a child?  Does anyone get to take a baby home from the hospital?  And then they are only reported for negligence when the situation occurs?  How sad.

Speaking of procreating, my fish is attempting to do so.  Forget the fact that she is the only fish of her kind in the tank.  She is moving one rock at a time out of the back corner of the tank and moving it to the front, creating a little divot for her eggs whenever they arrive.  There won't be any fertilizing of the eggs, since there is no male in the tank.  She'd probably eat them before they had a chance to hatch anyway.  She's a little hostile to any other fish I attempt to place in the water.

I actually just found out last weekend that Bubba is actually a Babette.  My friend Michelle has a tank full of red blood parrot cichlids and she noticed they had laid eggs.  She looked it up online to find out how to sex them.  Apparently the females have an appendage that differentiates them from their male counterpart.  I think the appendage only comes out when they are "in season".  At any rate, it should be interesting to see the whole process!