Conversation @ Costco

So, do you want that huge, plush, overstuffed bear you're standing there hugging to death?

No, it's fine.

Sure?

Yeah, let's get checked out.

(after we have checked out and the goodies from Costco are loaded in the car):
Y'know, I think maybe I want that bear for Christmas.

This store doesn't work that way. If you see it, you like it, you want it, you gotta buy it now, because they won't get it again for a long time.

Okay, let's go back and get it.  Pleeeeeease???

So we get out of the car, leaving our perishables in the 100-degree heat in the back of the car, and head back into the store.  On the way, he suddenly hurtles himself into my arms and gives me a big hug.

Some moms will do absolutely anything for hugs.

Ten minutes later, we are exiting Costco for the SECOND time, him hugging to his chest a stuffed bear that is almost as big as he is (and people are doing the swivel-head thing to get a second look at this gangly teen-ager blissfully snuggling into this bear's neck), and I'm left ruminating about the fact that he missed out on this kind of stuff throughout his whole childhood and that there is still a trace of that abandoned little 3-year-old in there who just wants a mommy and a teddy bear.