And still more parenting in the bookstore (or lack thereof)

Sunday must have been Bring Your Screaming Child to the Bookstore Day, because we had a lot of them. Throughout the day I heard children screaming in different areas of the store. Sometimes I was able to see what was going on, sometimes not.

One mother came to the information desk with her son, who looked to be close to two years old. He wiggled and squirmed and shouted and would not stay where she told him to on the floor. She finally sat him on the counter in front of her, where he promptly grabbed the store's computer monitor screen and pulled it as hard as he could toward himself and started mouthing the corner of the screen.

"Oh, stop doing that," the mother said, as I grabbed the sides of the monitor to prevent him from pulling it over. He was still chewing on the corner. She sighed. I held on. He kept pulling.

"This is what no-nap-today looks like," she said. "Well, he slept about 15 minutes." She paused, trying to contain her young son, who had golden curls and a miniature bow tie on a black and white plaid shirt. While she was trying to manage him, she was also asking about children's book titles. I don't remember what books she was looking for. I was more focused on protecting our computer equipment.

Later, I was standing at the cash register area with J. We were chatting in between helping customers. We could hear a child screaming close to the Nook display. This child had been screaming for a long time. We couldn't hear what he was saying, just that he was throwing a major fit. J. and I made a comment that maybe it was time to take the screaming child home - or at least out of the store.

After the screaming stopped, S., who had been at the Nook counter, came over and asked, "Do you know what that kid was screaming about?" When we said we didn't, she said, "He's this little kid, maybe three years old, and he's looking at the Nook Tablet. And he starts screaming, 'I don't WANT that! I want an iPad! Get me an iPad!'"

My mouth dropped open. It stayed open as she continued, "And the parents? They were saying, 'All right, we're not getting THIS one. You have to wait. We're not at the iPad store right now.'"

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