JB’s parents have this story about going out to eat at a Sizzler when JB was little, maybe around Dylan’s age or so. Actually, it’s not so much a story, because they’ve never shared the details of what exactly happened during this outing, only that it was so traumatic they didn’t go back to that Sizzler for, like, twenty years.

We haven’t experienced anything quite so bad with either kid, but I have a very bad memory of taking Riley to a Blockbuster when he was in that mobile-yet-completely-unreasonable baby/toddler stage. He wanted to get down and walk and the instant his feet hit the ground I had to chase him all over the store, through the giant line of exasperated customers, and eventually behind the counter where the employees were. Figuring it would be better for us to wait in the car, I picked him up, only to have him do that boneless/backflopping thing while a horrible, eardrum-rupturing sound spiraled from his mouth. I remember with grim, vivid detail every moment of that humiliating march across the store to the door, as my child thrashed in my arms like a rabid badger and shrieked so loud every single person turned to stare.

JB and I were driving by this same Blockbuster a couple weeks ago and I started to suggest that we stop and pick up a new release, then I considered the logistics. Riley would be no problem, but Dylan . . . well, we didn’t have the stroller and Dylan would want to walk and he’d probably do the exact same thing Riley did a few years ago: run all over the store, tear DVD boxes off shelves, and attempt to root through the employee garbage. Then there would be the red-faced exit, ferrying a tantruming child back out the car, and JB would be left to his own devices with regards to movie-choosing and we’d end up watching some shit like Bangkok Dangerous.

The Blockbuster Thing is one of the reasons I feel so conflicted about Dylan: how at the very same time I am nearly crazed by how fast he’s growing and wish I could preserve his chubby no-knuckled baby hands and no-kneecapped baby legs in amber before they suddenly become filled with bones like some sort of big kid, I am also eager to move past this stage of Strong Will + Mobility – Ability to Reason = TODDLER DEATHSTAR.

To be clear, it’s not specifically about Blockbuster, but rather the Blockbuster-at-large. I mean, I’m looking forward to the day we plan a family vacation to Hawaii, which involves air travel, something I would only do now if you paid me eleventy jillion dollars AND promised a bevy of Thorazine darts would be available to me during the flight.

In the meantime, I’ll invest our tropical vacation money in Netflix and try and savor Dylan’s ridiculous Pillsbury legs, because like everything else, they won’t last forever.

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Kellee
15 years ago

But…but…he looks so…innocent. Right?

Leeann
Leeann
15 years ago

So beautiful. So deadly.

Michelle
15 years ago

We are going to be getting on a plane in a few weeks with a four year old and a 14 month old. What I wouldn’t give for “a bevy of thorazine darts”.

I’m thinking of boarding with a batch of delicious homemade cookies to bribe fellow passengers.

Eric's Mommy
Eric's Mommy
15 years ago

Oh Dylan. I just want to gobble him up! He is so cute!!

TheGoriWife
15 years ago

Oh my goodness, what a belly! Just a little nibble….. Mmmm…..Belllllyyyyyyyyyyy

jen
jen
15 years ago

Oh his Buddha belly is adorable. He is so expressive. How on earth do you get him to stay still long enough for the picture?

Jennie C.
15 years ago

He’s tooooo darling.

Amy
Amy
15 years ago

That picture is so adorable…the face he’s making is precious!

Maureen
Maureen
15 years ago

This entry reminded me of the time I flew from Anchorage to Chicago with my 3yr old, on a red eye flight. We had a window and middle seat,and there was a very elderly lady on the aisle. My daughter did really well for most of the flight, but didn’t sleep till the very end, and I had to wake her up for the landing. She was so tired she started crying hysterically, it was awful.

I will never forget the reaction of the woman on the aisle, as my daughter was crying-I apologized to the woman and she looked at me with such kindness and she said “oh, but she has been such an angel through the entire flight!” and gave me a huge smile. I still think about how much that meant to me at the time, when I was about to pull my hair out.

Korinna
15 years ago

Don’t you love little baby deltoids?

It’s like they’re all muscley only to discover, like you pointed out above, they have no kneecaps! Or knuckles!

Hillary
15 years ago

Yes! Toddler deathstar is EXACTLY where we are at with The Boy. I just wrote about a meltdown we had in Borders. I chalk up my status as a first-time parent for thinking, even for an instant, that taking a book-loving, willful, mobile, illogical toddler into a bookstore might be a good idea. Stupid — a point made clear with The Boy’s screams and thrashing and driven home by nasty stares by other book-browsers.

Dylan is adorable.

pam
pam
15 years ago

oh god. i just flew with one of my 15 month old boys, and you know what’s fun? the blockbuster scenario on the plane. yeah. not really.

beach
beach
15 years ago

GAH…he is a cutie!!!!

ellipses127
15 years ago

2 words = Blockbuster Online.
Seriously… and yes they are better than Netflix… you can send hubby by himself (or YOU go so you don’t end up watching some shit like MIRRORS) to get a movie for FREE when you take in an online movie. Gah, I sound like I work there. Just a fan of the program…!!!

warcrygirl
15 years ago

Toddler Deathstar? BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Amanda
15 years ago

But he’s so friggin adorable. There’s just no way he could cause all that fuss!

Pete
Pete
15 years ago

Taking small kids on a plane is fun. You know what’s more fun? Sitting behind or ahead of someone with kids. Or better yet, kids with really smelly Diarrhea. And congested.

Christie
Christie
15 years ago

That is the most precious picture I have ever seen! He looks so innocent!!!!!

robyn
15 years ago

Dude. I hate Blockbuster so, I act exactly like your children when I enter one.

The problem might not be them, is all I’m sayin’.

robyn
15 years ago

I just reread what I wrote, and would like to clarify I am not implying YOU are the problem – it is The Blockbuster. The Evil, Evil Blockbuster.

Oh, and? Have walked out of plenty of places with a screaming toddler. Take it from me – after a while, you really do stop caring what those people staring at you think.

Becky
Becky
15 years ago

NOM NOM NOM….

Toddler Deathstar…HILARIOUS. Reece is at this exact stage….seriously how do they go from all muscle and activity to jello in like a nanosecond?

That is almost the exact same look I get before the little devil starts doing something that he knows he should not…that leads me to correcting him..which leads to a HUGE TANTRUM. This recent bout of tantrums actually caused me to buy a new bag that slings across my body since it is hard to carry a screaming child out of a store and try to hold onto my purse at the same time.

Georgia
15 years ago

Aaaah! Lady, you’re making my vow never to have children very difficult by having the CUTEST baby I’ve ever seen and posting photos of him that make my ovaries override my brain.

Kelsey
15 years ago

If I do any sort of errand with my two (ages 4 and 1) I feel like I should get an award for making it home without screaming at someone or having to make an embarrassed/hurried exit. Toting little people around is hard work!

Jennifer
15 years ago

What an adorable belly! He’s simply delicious. He’d never, ever scream, right???

This is exactly why I’m taking Jillian on a plane in the next few weeks before mobility hits and she’s content to sit on our laps for 7 hours.

Alexandra
15 years ago

You may be surprised by their ability to travel long distances – I took my daughter from Memphis to Australia when she was 22 months old .. incredible, quiet, well-behaved child for a 15 and a half hour nonstop flight. That baby crib thing that comes out of the wall allowed her to sit up there and face the ENTIRE 747 full of people to look at …. perfect traveller – has been ever since! Six international trips in her 6 year old life and counting!

Anonymous New York
15 years ago

He is the most adorable baby ever. And that is my favorite picture of him. So squishable!

Lesley
Lesley
15 years ago

Dylan is pretty darned adorable and yes, I vote to deep freeze his Gumby stage.

Because of posts like this I make every effort not to appear exasperated in public situations where toddlers and babies are doing the flounder-thrash/piercing scream thing. If the public wasn’t such a stone cold beeotch, moms would not feel so bad. This is, after all, what babies/kids do, and there isn’t a damn thing that can be done about it.

amy
amy
15 years ago

Hey, we did the Hawaii thing in 2004, with a 5 y.o. and a 17 m.o., from DC. Of course, we stopped in Seattle for two overnights both ways, but it really wasn’t that bad. My worst mistake was buying two brand new books for the little one … yeah, heavy-ass board books. I should have left those stupid things on Waikiki. Actually, the worst part of the whole thing was trying to fit the stroller through the Xray machine at the Seattle airport. Twice. Barefoot. Heh.

jenn
jenn
15 years ago

I’m right there with you… mine are 2 and 5, I’m torn between wanting to freeze them and wanting them to grow the hell up. But damn Dylan is a cute little shit!

Claire
15 years ago

I came here to say exactly what Georgia said, because OH MY GOD he is adorable.

Swistle
15 years ago

It seems like thorazine PATCHES would be be more convenient for air travel—oh, unless you were thinking of using them on the other passengers?

Amy
Amy
15 years ago

Too cute! I could eat him up.

ChelseaLI
ChelseaLI
15 years ago

That belly…looks…delicious! ON NOM NOM

Marvyn
15 years ago

Forget about Blockbuster and sign up for a Netflix account.

BTW, great picture. Would you mind sharing details on your flash setup? It almost looks like you just bounced it off the ceiling, yes?

Em
Em
15 years ago

My 19 year old son and I just went to the mall for the first time since the day in ’91 I swore we would NEVER GO TO THE MALL AGAIN.
I wasn’t kidding.

Anya  Paull
15 years ago

“I remember with grim, vivid detail every moment of that humiliating march across the store to the door, as my child thrashed in my arms like a rabid badger and shrieked so loud every single person turned to stare”

Ummm yeah, this was me in a Circuit City when the 1yr old kiddo went from happily looking at shelves to trying to rip every single camera case from the display, picking him up you would have thought I had jammed a red hot iron up his rear, oh the arching and screaming, my husband came running from the other section and was pale as a ghost “oh crap that is our kid!” I told him I would take it for the team and meet him outside, the longest walk to the front of the store in my life, some mom’s shook their heads with sympathetic eyes knowing my pain but others just stared like we were a zoo exhibit or aliens or worse, they were thinking what I always did “she must be doing it wrong, MY kids won’t act like that!” HA!

melanie
melanie
15 years ago

what is dylan holding in his little hands?

Elle
15 years ago

I experienced similar things with my aunts kids.
I specifically remember when her oldest son started running from me at the beach, surrounded by huge rocks I didn’t know if he’d go down first or I.

Thursday
15 years ago

He so looks like JB.

The New Girl
15 years ago

The formula is KILLING ME.

How funny.

LiLu
15 years ago

This?

“…something I would only do now if you paid me eleventy jillion dollars AND promised a bevy of Thorazine darts would be available to me during the flight.”

is freaking BRILLIANT. And that little munchkin looks like a perfect angel… there’s no way he would terrorize anything! Right…?

Leah
15 years ago

When Simon was little he did something so terrible at the local Red Lobster that management asked his parents to NEVER RETURN AGAIN. I don’t even want to know…

Karl
Karl
15 years ago

I always wondered, how do they violate the laws of physics too? How do they weigh 20 pounds on the scale, and 100 pounds when they fling themselves to the ground?

How the F**K can a kid that demonstrably weighs 25 pounds on a scale, nearly break the arm of a 165 pound male in good shape, 35 years old, just by lunging at the floor?

And the worst part, as you’ve demonstrated, is that with all of this, they look So Damned CUTE to Everyone ELSE???? !!! ???

Rachel
Rachel
15 years ago

That child could be a model. I just want to nom his toes.

Elaine at Lipstickdaily

Oh God . . . LOVE the pic! Toooo angelic!

amber
15 years ago

He looks so wise beyond his years! I can’t decide whether I want to nibble his cheeks or blow raspberries on his tummy. Lucky you!

nonsoccermom
15 years ago

Oh, but he’s such an adorable pumpkin!

But I am not fooled. For my daughter is 15 months old and lo, we are in the exact same spot.

Kari-Mel
15 years ago

Oh. My. God. the absolute cuteness of that picture! It makes you want to nom nom nom all over him!

Jem
Jem
15 years ago

Hey, I used to work at a Blockbuster. The only kid I ever remember bothering me, was about 6 and ran up to me and BIT me. He drew blood from my workmate AND I. The only reason I didn’t lose it was because his poor mother looked like she was about to cry, and she didn’t even know he’d bitten us. I didn’t bother telling her, she looked EXHAUSTED.

Jakki
15 years ago

LOL why does his expression look like he’s saying ‘i would NEVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVa do dat….i pwamisssssssss….’

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