First I'll start with the good part of my shopping experience.

Now, not that I would suggest that anyone shop at a store who's name may or may not be spelled with a star (or a sunshiney asterisk, depending on how new yours is) but if you are anything like me and you are tightening your pursestrings a bit you might be making fewer trips to Target because you have a slight spending problem when you walk in Target but you only shop for what you actually need at the other place. Anyway, if you chose to shop the sun/star store, and you have a toddler or a preschooler, check the toy aisle. They have retro Candyland and Chutes and Ladders there for $10 a piece. They come in hard boxes, which totally beats the cardboard ones that eventually end up requiring a roll and a half of Scotch tape on every corner because they get stepped on every time the game is played. And they are full size boards in a smaller than normal box. I love smaller than normal storage solutions.

I like to keep toys very minimal and simple, and one way of doing that is restricting most of what I buy to things that I had when I was little and telling everyone else not to buy Jake anything. It's very therapeutic to watch my son play with the same things that my brother and I played with when we were little. I'm big on nostalgia like that. It's also very therapeutic to not have mounds of super loud battery operated garbage lying around the house.

And now the sad part. You can't go to that store and not see something sad, can you? When I walked in, I noticed a little boy, maybe 3 or 3.5 years old, walking up and down that big aisle between the door and the baby stuff in the back. I noticed that no one was calling him to come back to the cart, so I stuck around there for ten minutes or so. I finally asked him if he was looking for his mommy and he said yes. I asked him to sit on the bench near the bras and I would look for his mom and he did. Ten minutes had passed and no one was calling for this child. There was no PA announcement, no store associates that said anything to him, no other moms who bothered with him. Shame on his mother for not paying close attention. I know I'm much more paranoid about letting Jake have a bit a freedom than most moms are with their kids, but ten minutes and you don't even call for your son? I would be screaming loud enough for everyone to hear. I would want everyone in that store to know that I was missing my three foot tall brown haired brown eyed son Jacob wearing a camouflage sweat suit (don't say it. I let him pick out his own clothes today) and a black coat and hiking boots. Everyone in the store would know what I was missing.
Shame on the store personnel for not noticing a baby running free for so long, and shame on the customers who pushed him out of the way rather than hold his hand.
He was a dirty little brownishbutkindayellow child, clearly not my own. No one would have assumed he was mine, even though I was close by to him. It breaks my heart. Seriously, in half.
He was so trusting of me and let me hold his hand and lead him over to the bench. He listened to me when I told him to sit still. Kids his age aren't supposed to do that. They aren't supposed to be subservient like that. As much as I want Jake to listen and follow, I'm glad when he doesn't because it means he feels safe enough and trusts me enough to test me. It's what kids are supposed to do. Jake listens better to other people, but only other people he knows well. Your kids probably do the same thing. You know what I mean, how they get all weird around perfect strangers and roll their eyes and shake their shoulders and make goofy grunty noises. It's normal behavior for normal kids who are growing up in normal houses.
When children are sheepish and subservient in an unfamiliar situation it is a sign that they aren't properly cared for and nurtured. That little boy was scared, a healthy kid that age would have been hiding or crying, but he was just roaming around.

Waiting for someone to take care of him.

I can't wait until we are all rich again so I can stay out of that place. My heart can't afford to shop there.