Last week I came to the grips with the fact that I could no longer put off doing my Fifth Least Favorite Thing To Do With My Kids.

Shoe shopping with my two youngest.

I decided to take a couple of members of my posse as back-ups since I wanted to be smart this time. [Actually, I wanted to be DRUNK this time, but I was the one driving.] Lucky for me, my mother and my aunt went kicking and screaming along with us to help.

The five of us packed into the Expedition and headed out for our trip to the mall, Mom and I in the front, Emma, Katelynn, and Aunt Patty in the second row.

Emma and Katelynn were being uncharacteristically quiet little angels during the car trip, thanks to the Tootsie Pops Aunt Patty had bought them as a bribe. God love that woman.

We were pretty close to being there when Aunt Patty broke the silence.

“Emma, do you know what seeing you eating a sucker reminds me of?”

“Hmm-umm.” Emma replied, without relaxing the liplock she had on the candy.

“It reminds me of the spring when you were almost two-years-old and your Momma, your Mimi, Jake and Jenna, and you and I all drove to California to visit Kasey and go to Disneyland and you were eating a sucker and Jenna teased you about something and made you so angry that you smacked her with your sucker.”

Emma, who LOVES to hear stories about herself, hung on Aunt Patty’s every word.

She continued, “And your Momma got very angry at you and she scolded you and took away your sucker so you started throwing a huge tantrum and screaming and crying at the TOPOFYOURLUNGS. And I was trying to get you to stop, so I said, ‘Emma, do you want a drink of juice?’ and you yelled, ‘NNNN-OO!’ so I said, ‘Do you want to play a game?’ and you yelled, ‘NNNN-OO!’ so I said, ‘Do you want a piece of gum?’ and you yelled “NNNN-OO!’ so then I said ‘DO YOU WANT TO HIT JENNA WITH YOUR SUCKER AGAIN?’ And you yelled ‘YYYYEEESSS!’”

From the front seat, Mom and I laughed since enough time has now passed that the story is funny. Because at the time, it. was. NOT. funny. (To me at least. Everyone else thought it was pretty funny at the time too.)

Aunt Patty sighed contentedly, having finished her little anecdote, “So that’s what it reminds me of.”

Emma, unfazed, took the sucker out of her mouth for the first time during the car ride.

“Oh,” she said flatly, “It reminds me of dead people.”

And, then as now, I just have no response for that. But on a completely unrelated note, I think I’ll stop letting her watch Ghost Whisperer with me.