Last night, I waited until my husband got home from work to go to the grocery store. Waited is the wrong word, since I was bouncing on the balls of my feet and had my muscles all warmed up for a sprint to the van as soon as he walked through the gate. I was ready for some "me" time - which lately means an errand. Not that I'm complaining (hello, NYC?)

Anyhoo, my "me" time last night included bringing my five-year-old to Trader Joes for a little high-speed grocery action. She talked my ear off the entire way to the store. She told me all about how she looooooves preschool, because they get to make craft-projects, and sing great songs, and play with toys, and have snacks, and read stories and play outside, and sit in circles and the toilets are really little, and it's so great.

Then she launched into a tangent about how her class (and me, apparently) is going on a field trip to Fire Station #2 on Friday, and she's so excited about that, because she knows how to dial 911 and stop, drop and roll, and she has a paper hat with a number 2 on it, and she's really excited about it even though she's seen it before like 5 times, because she went as a baby with my oldest (twice) and as a young toddler with my son's classes (twice) and they went last year, too but the firemen kept having to leave to save some peoples.

(whew!)

At the store, she debated the merits of white vs. wheat - "WHOLE GRAINS, Mommy. They are a whole lot better! Get it, Mommy? Huh?"

She weighed in on entrees - "Not those ones. Get the pretty ones that look like caterpillars." (Chicken-apple sausages.)

She demanded that I buy a trio pack of three different onions because "You never know."

How right she is.

At the frozen food aisle she really got into her groove. See, that's where they keep the candy and cookies, above the frozen bins. She mused out loud for a good 10 minutes about which treats would be best, before finally deciding on chocolate syrup to make chocolate milk and a box of jelly beans.

"Mommy, can I please get those Jellies? I promise I'll eat only one each day. I'll treat each of them like a treasurement!"

The guy stocking the juices next to me started chuckling. Encouraged, my daughter turned it up to eleven.

"Oh, Jellies!" she said. She swooned dramatically and rolled her eyes. "Jellies! We're going to have a party! We'll have chocolate milk, and eat jellies, and play party games, and dance..."

At this point, the guy was nodding his head and laughing.

My daughter looked at him with approval and said "Stop by around 6, okay? We don't have time to make invitations, but you can just tell them* I saw you."

As I pushed my cart toward the line, my daughter yelled "You can bring your friends!"

*Who is "them?"