One of those days...long and bad (both the day and the post)

Yesterday started off well enough, a happy mommy and happy daughter woke up, snuggled, had some breakfast and read a book or two before I decided that we were going to go out and have a fun "date day" of lunch, shopping and hanging out. We showered and Madelyn started dressing herself.
With a little difficulty...and not very weather appropriate clothes. You can't tell in these pictures but her shorts are actually on upside down. As in the waistband was at her knees until she tugged so hard she basically turned them inside out.

After suggesting 5 different outfits, we finally agreed on her sweet little madras dress and purple chucks. It's such a cute outfit we had a little photo shoot.

I did not pose her. Please remember this sweetness in a minute.

We loaded up in the car and drove up north to shopping and food. We talked about our shopping plans on the way and Madelyn watched Robin Hood. Since we had gotten a later start my plan was to eat lunch, then walk to the mall and she would fall asleep in her stroller while I got some shopping and walking in.

Unfortunately she fell asleep before I decided on a place to eat. I wanted an "adult" restaruant. Not fast food as most of our lunches out tend to be. So I drove around for about 5 more minutes to let her get good and asleep. This is where the day falls apart because I thought I could move her from her carseat to the stroller and she'd go right back to sleep. Nope. She screamed and cried so I carried her hoping she'd doze back off on my shoulder. Nope. I bribed her back into the stroller with a jingly bell reindeer headband and we smelled candles and all was OK for a bit. Until she got tired of the jingly bell reindeer headband thing and started crying again. So I found a plastic dragon toy to entertain her for a bit.

This is where the day goes completely and utterly sour. I walk over to feed my addiction of pretty paper and she's playing happily with the dragon, until all the sudden she isn't. I try to make her happy but mostly I'm ignoring her because I'm on a mission and nothing is wrong with her really. I get my papers for my project and we go to check out. I carry her and try to put the dragon back on the shelf and tell it "bye bye" like we do with toys all the time without a fight. Nope. She pitches an everloving fit yelling "Mine" and holding it close. Then she sees some m&ms on the shelf and offer her those to put the dragon up. I figured the m&ms could be a treat for after lunch. So now she has m&ms AND the dragon because my wonderful moment of parenting did not go the way it was supposed to. At the register I tell the cashier that we are not getting the dragon and Madelyn loses her sh*t.

Out to the car we go with a kicking and screaming 2 year old who throws her m&ms out of the car twice before I take them away completely (it was a mini m&m plastic container). I figure out that lunch is not happening so we drive to chic fil a but I have to stop on the way there to get in the back seat to have a little heart to heart with the monster. 10 minutes later I order our food and because it's a gorgeous day the windows are down, I pass Madelyn her fries and she throws them out the window.

I finish eating, she starts playing with her kazoo (seriously?!?!?) and in a last ditch effort to salvage our afternoon I head to walmart. As I turn into the parking lot she falls asleep. We turned around and drove home.

The saving part of the day was going to our friends house for dinner and a chance for Madelyn to play with the girls and a couple of nice big glasses of Lambic and adult conversation for me. Thank you Wiggins family for having us over for dinner. You really did wonders for my sanity!