Since this Saturday was the only open date for our college football team this fall, pretty much every wedding, garage sale, festival, and city-wide event was scheduled to take place over the weekend. We’re gearing up to do some projects over the next few months, so we decided it might be fun to go to one of the special events, the Home Design and Remodeling Expo on Saturday.
Trade shows like this one are never an ideal place to take the girls for entertainment, so we devised a strategy of each taking one child and splitting up to look at the booths for awhile. I took the Toddler and got involved in a lengthy conversation with a countertop expert. Surprisingly, the Toddler was being very patient, not pulling my hand, not running around, just standing beside me quietly. Thinking to myself how unusually well she was doing, I kept chatting with the salesman. A few minutes later, the Spouse and the Preschooler found us and joined in on the countertop conversation for awhile. And, then… about fifteen minutes into our big discussion about top-mount versus under-mount sinks, I glanced down and noticed what was keeping my assigned child so occupied.
There the Toddler stood in the middle of the aisle with both her leggings AND her panties down at her ankles, bare-bottomed for all to see… much to the amusement of the people working the Garage Door Transformations booth across the way. {I’m not sure at what point one of them would have alerted me to the partial undressing that was taking place in the aisle, but I’d like to think that someone would have eventually been moved to action}. She wasn’t fussing. She wasn’t fidgeting. She was just standing there participating in her own silent, non-violent protest against the Home Show.
I, of course, abruptly left the countertop conversation, immediately pulled her clothes back up and escorted her to the nearest restroom in case this was some sort of warning. And, on the way, I asked her…
Me: Why did you pull your clothes down out there?
The Toddler: Why did I pull my clothes down?
Me: I don’t know. You tell me.
The Toddler: I just did it. {with a smile} Can I have a blue drink? {pointing to the blueberry slush machine in the lobby}
She’s quite a master of changing the subject.
It was all a silent plea for attention, I suppose. And, it worked. Two days later and the Toddler has yet to offer a real explanation for the incident. Let’s just hope this doesn’t become a new habit… because while I’m accustomed to dealing with the occasional fussing, fighting and throwing of fits, I’m pretty sure I can’t handle spontaneous public immodesty.
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