by Adisyn Lee

Created on: August 31, 2008   Last Updated: September 10, 2008

As a parent I knew the day would come, I had been warned that it would happen and as a single person had witnessed other parents go through them. It is that moment in which your child turns from the perfect creation and blessed gift from Heaven above, to the demon spawn of Satan that they turn into somewhere around the age of two. My moment came like many others, in the depths of hell better known as Wal-Mart, with my 20 month old daughter (a.k.a demon spawn) sitting in the front of the basket. It started off good, she sat there extremely cute as she smiled and waved at everyone we passed making quite sure that everyone knew she was perfect. She was so intelligent; she at this time was speaking full sentences and was inquisitive about most everything.

It was around Christmas, so Wal-Mart was completely packed even in the early morning hours that we were shopping in. We made our way through the first part of our shopping trip with minor complications, the occasional whining because she dropped her cup or blanket but nothing too serious. It wasn't until we made it to the house wares department that everything fell apart. We were walking by the items in the center of the aisles that were set out as possible gift ideas, when we came across a large grandfather clock that sat at the end of the aisle. My daughter instantly got all excited and asked, "What's that?" I simply replied, "That's a big clock", and started to walk away.

As we were walking away my daughter started to cry and scream, she wanted the clock, and she kept screaming "big clock". This was the first tantrum she had ever thrown and I was extremely inexperienced in handling these kinds of moments. I tried to console her for I noticed that everyone was looking at us as they passed and they looked very unhappy. I then began to notice exactly what my daughter was screaming. She was screaming that she wanted the "big clock" however she was leaving the "L" out of the word clock. I then became very nervous for she just kept repeating it over and over. I threw a teddy bear at her in hopes that she would say teddy, I bribed her with a treat, I tried singing to her and nothing was working she remained determined to get the "big clock".

I began to walk very quickly through the store trying to find a hiding place, I at this time had begun to break out into a sweat, I felt like I was going to cry, and my daughter kept crying and flailing in the basket screaming "big c*k" throughout the entire store. I finally found an aisle that was very remote and had no one in it and called my husband at work to ask for his advice on the situation, and all the time my daughter continued her course. When my husband answered the phone, I began to tell him the story in hopes that he would have some words of wisdom or even a word or two that would console me, and he began laughing. I was livid! Here I am in Wal-Mart during the busiest season, trying to buy groceries, when my 20 month old begins crying and throwing a fit screaming "big c*k" throughout the entire store and he laughs!

It was then that I realized that this was indeed extremely funny, I had to stop and laugh myself. When I began to laugh my daughter began to laugh and finally stopped screaming obscenities. We finally made it through the rest of the shopping trip. We had passed the clock again only this time I told her it was a big watch and she seemed to forget that I had only earlier called it a big clock and I was very happy about this. So for the longest time afterwards clocks were referred to in our home as watches.

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