Yesterday, Cherry decided that she wanted to bring Baby Jr, and the baby's stroller, and a sack with all of the baby's things with her when we went to the Auchan. In a fit of idiocy, I let her. Before we could go the the grocery store though, I needed to get cash, and the ATM for our bank is located at the farthest reaches of the mall. Cherry pushed the stroller with Baby Jr, and I pulled the shopping caddy and, not surprisingly, carried the sack with all of the baby's stuff.
Midway down the mall, Cherry stopped abruptly. "That baby is looking at me." Sure enough, there was a baby (maybe 15 months old) standing at the entrance to a shop and staring, not at Cherry, but at Baby Jr. "Pick me up." I assure her that the baby's mommy is taking care of her, and that she's fine and we should just keep walking. The baby starts to toddle out of the shop, straight for the stroller. Cherry picks up the stroller, and asks again for me to pick her up. I refuse, since I can see that the baby's mom is coming. She picks up the little one and carries her back into the store, and we continue to the ATM.
On the way back up the mall, we're passing the same store, and the same baby sees Cherry, and comes toddling/running out, straight for the stroller. Again, Cherry shrieks and tries to pick up the stroller and the baby and hold them both over her head. Eventually the mom corrals the baby, and we head down toward the Auchan again.
At this point, Cherry, concerned for the welfare of Baby Jr, decides that contrary to what she wanted to do earlier, she really would like to ride in a shopping cart so that she can keep her baby safely out of the reach of the rabble who want to steal her. We get on the moving rampway going down into the underground parking garage to get a shopping cart. Now, the rampway has grooves all over it (like those in escalator steps) and the wheels on the shopping carts are designed with little ridges on them that wedge perfectly into those grooves. That means that you can't actually push a shopping cart on the rampway (you have to let it carry you up), but it also means that you don't have to worry about the shopping cart getting away from you on the ramp. In fact, you can let go of a shopping cart on the ramp without fear that it's going to go flying.
Cherry pushed her baby onto the rampway, and then let go, taking advantage of the grooves and ridges, so that she could take off her mittens. Of course, the stroller wheels didn't have the little ridges that fit into the rampway, and so the stroller went careening down the ramp while she looked on in horror. Fortunately the woman in front of us heard it coming and turned around and stopped it before it smashed into her, and before I figured out how to yell, "Look out, runaway stroller!" in French. (Also fortunately, the whole thing probably weighs 3 pounds, so it's not like it can do too much damage.) Cherry promptly burst into tears and the woman tried to assure her that it was OK, nothing had happened to the baby, etc. I finally got her calmed down, and showed her the difference between the shopping cart wheels and those on her stroller, and assured her that nobody was upset with her. She tucked her baby safely beside her in the shopping cart seat, and we headed up the ramp to the store, wheels safely locked in place.
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