Layla - Princess of Pop

There was a point in Layla's life where the only song she wanted to listen to in the car was Smooth Criminal. It was when we still lived in Illinois and she commuted an hour with me to work everyday. She would be SO crabby in the mornings and the nursery rhyme CD wasn't cutting it (and I could not listen to Hickory Dickory Dock one more time!). One day I turned on some MJ and all of a sudden, she stopped crying. So we listened to Smooth Criminal over and over and over again. I didn't mind ;o)

I let Layla listen to pretty much whatever she wants on my Ipod. My brother and I grew up on MTV, we used to get permission to leave the dinner table when Thriller came on and we turned out OK.  She even knows how to turn our surround sound on, plug my phone in and find what she wants (currently a LOT of Lady Gaga). This is pretty impressive since I can barely figure the thing out! Haha. She just loves music, and this makes my heart happy. :)

Anyway...today I had to run some errands. What a perfect day to do this...the high is 50 today! I promised Layla that if she was good on all our stops, she could get a balloon at the party store. Our first stop was JoAnne Fabrics. I hate taking Layla in there with me because I need to concentrate...and that's hard to do with a two year old that can't decide if she wants to walk or ride in the cart, drink juice or eat Cheerios, potty or not...etc. I tried to make the trip quick but she was getting a little crabby while we waited in line.

Now, I have no idea what possessed the folks at JoAnne's to have a box fan set to "high" on the floor but Layla thought it was hilarious. While I was checking out she kept creeping over there and all I could see was her sticking her fingers in there. I kept telling her "no" and roping her back into the checkout lane...and then the "terrible twos" kicked in. All of a sudden she takes off towards the fan, turns around to look at me standing right in front of it, and while I'm running over to get her...she does this:

I kid you not...fists in a ball, hair flying everywhere and yelling. If the above image wasn't the first thing that came to mind, I would have gone over there and taken her to the bathroom for a talk. But all I could do was bust up laughing. I mean I was literally crying because I was laughing so hard. And now all the workers there think I have a mental disorder because I couldn't compose myself. The more I tried to stop it, the harder I laughed. And of course Layla is ticked because now I'm making fun of her.

I know she has no idea who Michael Jackson is and where this came from (I swear if someone would have walked in with a top hat resembling Slash...I would have LOST IT) but it doesn't matter, it is still the funniest thing that happened to me all week. Did she finally get the timeout she so well deserved? Let's just say we had a discussion in the car. Did she get a balloon for being good at the next place? Yep...how can I deny the future Pop Princess a single pink polka dot balloon?