Taking LuLu shopping is always an adventure. You’d think after being in our family for nine years, I’d be able to successfully do grocery shopping with her in tow and not much difficulty. So yesterday we headed out to gather up the food for our party on Sunday. LuLu has taken to wandering off, a behavior that started about six months ago. So I set the expectation up front, before we ever got into the store that she must stay in the same row of the store as I was in or shopping was over. (Yes, I’m prepared to abandon the shopping cart if need be…and I have done it before.)

LuLu did really well as we went from store to store gathering things. Before heading into Walmart we drove through a fast food place for fries and sodas to refresh us. As we stood at the checkout at Walmart, I realized how drinking a soda had made me need to find the restroom. I mentioned this to LuLu who said she needed to go as well. So I sent her ahead, while I was paying…keeping the restroom door in full view. A few minutes later she immerged.

Without much thought, I plopped her on the bench right outside the restroom with my cart of groceries and specific instructions not to move, grabbed my purse and headed inside…a few minutes later, I returned to find her talking to a man sitting next to her. My heart lept into my throat.

I snatched her up quickly, while the young man (in hindsight he was probably only a couple years older than her), smiled at me with the oddest look on his face, a strange combination of bemusement, embarrassment and worry. So I quizzed LuLu about what had happened.

LuLu reported that he touched the shopping cart and she told him to “Go away.” He told her “That wasn’t very nice.” She then asked him if he was a “mean person” and he said he wasn’t, but needed to sit on the bench to wait on his mother in the restroom. There was another woman in the restroom about my age, who did look somewhat like this young man…so the story is plausible. In fact, he may have been trying to move the cart aside so he could sit on the bench and wait for his mother. But that was not what the first thought was that raced through my mind.

The entire episode gave me a deeper appreciation of LuLu’s lack of common sense and maturity. She got it right that the stranger was supposed to “stay away”, but she quickly trusted him when he said he was a good person. In fact, she was emphatic that he was good because he had said he was. Wow, I’m not sure how to counteract that one! We talked at length about how she should not talk with strangers, but that if she did, she shouldn’t tell them her name, and under no circumstances should she go anywhere with anyone other than mom or dad or her siblings, unless I had sent her with friends.

Yikes! There is so much to think about…and worry about with our special kids! I won’t be leaving her alone outside the restroom of any store again.

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