Author's Note: Everything Gaston does in this fic is stuff I actually did as a child, often in the same day. I was a nightmare. I'm not just trying to make him look bad. Actually, I love Gaston.
Diane Framagucci, while she loved her children more than anything else in the world, hated taking them shopping. They were in the worst of all places to take them, too: the Midtown Mall.
She got out of the car and opened the minivan's sliding door. Art and Gaston had already gotten out of their car seats and Fanny waited patiently for her mother to help her out. Franny, being the youngest, had the one seat that was impossible to get out of from inside. Gaston and Art were old enough to know not to remove their seatbelts while the car was in motion. Actually, Art had already tried to unbuckle Franny's, but she only trusted Mom so she kicked preventing him getting too close.
"Alright Franny, let's get you out of that thing." Now, she had three kids, ages three, five and six-and-a-half, to watch for next two or three hours while she got what she needed. She got out Franny's stroller from the trunk and put the girl in. "Boys, you must be holding either my arm or the side of the stroller at all times. Do you understand?"
"Yeah," young Arthur said as he nodded.
"Mmmhmm." She knew not to believe it, though. She would have to watch them like a hawk. Gaston especially. That boy could disappear in an empty room with no windows or doors. She had tried those child leash things, but A) she found them degrading, her children weren't dogs and B) it took under a minute for each of her kids to get them off even when they weren't helping each other. Franny had very cutely taken the wrist strap off and attached it to her shoe, demonstrating that she could escape if she wanted, but she didn't want to (where she got the coordination to do that at her age, Diane would never know).
She walked the children carefully across the parking lot to the mall door. She could do this. The second they got in the door, the kids saw advertisements for toy stores and the boys could read that there was a candy shop nearby. And the begging began. "If you guys are all on your best behavior we will go to the toy store. No candy. It will spoil your dinner and it's hard enough to get you to sit still for a minute your even worse when you've had sugar."
"Okay, Mommy," she heard from the stroller.
"We'll behave," Gaston said. She took that with a grain of salt.
"I promise I'll be good," Art said in his cutsey-est voice, telling Diane he had some trick up his sleeve. She sighed. Eventually, they'd be home.
Okay, first up: the book store. Her sister had just found out that her toddler had Asperger's Syndrome, and Diane happened to know of a few good books that dealt with the subject. One was on raising a child with disabilities, in general, and was more of an "I've been there, too" type thing. The other discussed specific challenges and strategies of parenting a child with mild Autism.
Of course, mere moments after they stepped pas the doors, the boys abandoned their posts as her side and ran to the children's section. Sometimes she resented the fact that they could now read. Well, at least she knew where they'd be when it was time to get them. As she wheeled her to the parenting section, Franny began whining. She wanted to join in on the boys' fun. Diane reached into a little compartment under the stroller and took out a stuffed frog, and a doll. Franny chose the frog.
Franny was able to entertain herself with the frog for the entire time Diane spent looking for the books. She also looked at a book about controlling your ADHD child in public. None of her children had this diagnosis, but it could provide some good ideas. After looking through it for a minute, she put it back. Nothing new, there. She rounded up the boys and made her purchase.
The next task was shoes. All three of them needed new ones. Boy do they grow fast. Well, Franny wasn't outgrowing hers just yet, but her only sneakers were getting holes and one was tearing in the back. What did she do in them? One of the good things about the shoe stores, though, was that they were not very big (she refused to go into ones that were) so they didn't get lost as often. Also, kids shoes were usually kept near each other. Amazingly, Art found his shoes in the first store. They had Buzz Lightyear on them and they lit up. Neato. Oh lord, their language had infiltrated her thought processes. Gaston went for ones that were designed to look like racecars, two shops later. Franny turned out to be the pickiest, but eventually settled on some pink slip-ons with purple flowers. All in all, it had taken four stores to get shoes on their feet. At least that was over.
Break time! First, she took them all back to the car, to put away what they had picked up so far. Next, she took the kids to the food court where there was a small playground. She also took some apple slices, carrot sticks and water bottles out of an insulted lunch box in the bottom compartment of the stroller. After snacks, she was able to sit while the little ones ran around on the play equipment. She hoped they were getting their excess energy out, without tiring themselves too much.
She watched them all carefully. They had distinctly different playing styles. Art was mostly into climbing stuff, both up and down (though he enjoyed the slides quite a bit); Gaston climbed to the highest point he could, then jumped down and ran around making "flying" noises; Franny usually found a friend and did some sort of pretend play. Today Franny was leading a girl a who looked little older than her around as they pretended to swim through the air, then they played leapfrog. Eventually, the kids came back. She gave them some more water and took them to the bathroom. Then, they were off, again.
MacIntyre's Department Store was the next stop. They needed new linen and she had to pick out a gift for her husband's cousin's wedding. The wedding gift shouldn't take too long, though, as they were registered at the store and she and Emma had very similar taste. But there was also a sale on silverware sets, and their utensils had slowly been disappearing from the kitchen. She suspected that she should either look at what they had for sale, start digging up the backyard or start serving only finger food. The first one sounded like the best option.
Well, the department store was a complete nightmare. On their way to the linen, Franny pulled out a towel at the bottom of the stack because it was a pretty shade of blue. The other towels fell. Most of them landed on her. Now, Diane had some towels to fold as an employee came to help her, and a screaming child. Art knocked over a display of what was luckily unbreakable glassware. It made a loud noise, which made a sleepy Franny cry. It also made just about the entire floor look at her as she and an employee picked up the glasses that were strewn about the floor. This was when Gaston escaped the third time.
The same employee found a stray Gaston three times. He must have thought Diane was an awful parent. She couldn't keep her eye on this one for ten seconds. He got away two other times, but a different employee found him one time, and she found him the next. He was hiding under a rack of dress slacks that blocked almost all visibility of him. He told her it was his new pants-fort and she couldn't come in. She reached in and grabbed him. No pants-forts allowed.
Finally, she walked out of the department store with her goals accomplished. Just two stores left. Diane needed a new coat as the cat had determined her last one to be a threat and had, accordingly, ripped it to shreds. She always bought coats at the store their neighbor owned. They were good quality (she had the last one for five years), cute and the owner gave them a 10 discount. Luckily, Campbell's Coats was a small store. Also, most of the employees knew them and liked playing with the kids. Actually, it seemed they had worn themselves out, a little.
There was a bench in the northeast corner of the store where she sat her kids. She gave Art his coloring book, Franny her frog and attempted to give Gaston some toy of some sort, but he wasn't interested. She hoped he could just sit still. She took a coat off the rack nearest the bench and tried it on. After she had tried all the coats within eyeshot of the bench, she asked the employees to help her. She described what she wanted and her size. Brenda went to get some options, while Diane sat with her kids.
Art was coloring quietly, Franny seemed happy with her toy and Gaston sat still doing… something. Actually couldn't tell what he was doing. He sat on the floor in front of the bench sitting still quietly (and did I mention sitting still?) moving his hands along the floor. From the motions of his arms, it looked like he was playing with and action figure, or something, but she saw nothing in his hands. She decided it was best not disrupt him, lest he lose interest in staying in one place.
Brenda came back with a few options, but the moment she saw it, Diane knew the one on top was the one for her. It was light blue with a silver zipper and silver stripes up the sides. She bought the coat and told the kids to get up or get back in the stroller. Before she started off, though, she just had to ask.
"Gaston, what are playing with?"
He sheepishly opened his hand to reveal two staples. He had just spent twenty minutes playing with staples. When she asked where he got them, he shrugged and looked at the floor. "But their not just staples mom. They can be horses or racecars or people or super heroes or monkeys."
She smiled at this. "How imaginative of you. Now, hand over the staples." They were kind of dangerous to play with. And dirty.
"Well, kids. You've been behaving yourselves for the last few minutes, so we're going to the toy store." It had nothing to do with behavior, actually. Art was going to a birthday party in a week and they needed a gift. She just told them it was a reward in the hope that they would behave. "We only have a little while, though, then we have to go. No whining when we leave, got it?" Once again, all the children agreed, but Diane knew it meant nothing.
Later, on the drive home, Diane grew slightly worried. She heard no sounds coming from the back of the car. She checked the rearview mirror and saw that they were all asleep. Finally.