With the two kids in tow, Jolene headed straight for the food section. Raymond, with his long legs, had already turned a corner and disappeared within a few strides—he seemed very familiar with the store, and walked incredibly fast.
He was the type who went straight for what he needed, not one for browsing. Classic straight-guy shopping behavior.
Jolene chuckled to herself—she found him quite amusing.
The kids were overjoyed at the sight of so many delicious things, wanting everything they laid eyes on.
Since the employer was paying, Jolene happily grabbed a shopping cart. Emma, of course, didn’t dare take anything, but Ben wanted to toss everything he saw into the cart.
The problem was, Ben was grabbing nothing but sweets. He hadn’t lost his baby teeth yet, and the sheer amount of sugar was overwhelming—Raymond would definitely think it was over the top.
Jolene never really knew how to manage Ben. The kid didn’t like being told “no,” and she wasn’t his mother—there was no need to butt heads with him. But if she didn’t step in, she’d look irresponsible.
Watching the cart fill up, Jolene was at her wit’s end. She tried to recall the original owner’s experience, but there wasn’t much to go on—those two kids had never gone shopping with the original owner before, and she’d never been in charge of something like this.
Jolene tried to remember the parenting novels she’d written in her past life. Apparently, five-year-olds were in a stage of intense desire for “ownership” and “choice.” If you flat-out refused them, they might rebel—especially a kid like Ben, and Jolene was just the nanny. They’d gotten along well for two weeks, but that wouldn’t stop a child from getting angry.
Right—kids needed empathy. First, acknowledge their choices. Then, offer an acceptable way to limit the quantity. Finally, restrict the options to a finite set rather than infinite choices.
With that plan in mind, Jolene glanced at the cart packed with bags of candy: marshmallows, lollipops, milk chocolate bars, M&Ms, Snickers, Skittles, Starburst, sour gummy worms, Twizzlers…
“Hey, Ben, isn’t our cart getting a little full?” Jolene stopped walking and asked.
Ben turned around. He’d been marching ahead through the candy aisle like he’d discovered a new world, completely unstoppable. He hadn’t realized the cart was already full.
“Huh? Isn’t this cart kind of small?” Ben pursed his lips, eyes wide with genuine shock.
“There are so many kinds of candy here—Emma and I haven’t tried any of them. Ben really knows a lot about candy!” Jolene praised him.
Ben giggled. “Then today I’ll treat you both, so we can try every single kind! I’ve seen my classmates eat them.”
Jolene nodded, then furrowed her brow and tapped her chin with her finger. “Oh, what a shame. It’d be great if we could eat all this candy at once, but candy has an expiration date, right? If we open everything, it’ll go bad. We won’t be able to finish it, and we can’t eat it past the expiry date. What a waste of money—and isn’t this candy even more expensive than the chocolate chip cookies we made ourselves?”
Ben immediately picked up the bag of marshmallows from the cart and inspected it front and back. “Where’s the expiration date? How long before it expires? Does it go bad as soon as you open it?”
“Yeah, such a pity. Look,” Jolene turned the marshmallow bag over and pointed at the date on the back. “See? The shelf life is six months—recommended to consume by September 30th. Yikes, that’s cutting it close.”
Ben’s mouth dropped open, and he scrunched up his little face in distress. “What do we do, then?”
“How about this: we pick three kinds this time, and next time we go on a picnic, we pick three different ones. That way, within a year, we’ll have tried every single kind—and every time we buy, they’ll be freshly stocked from the store. What do you think?” Jolene tilted her head and suggested with a smile.
Ben thought it over and nodded. “Okay, let’s pick three then. We’ll buy more next time. But which three should we pick?”
“It’s fine—you know more about which ones taste good. You pick. We just need to decide before we check out,” Jolene said with a smile.
She remembered now—giving a child plenty of time to make a delayed choice, letting them process it and decide, was something she’d written about in a parenting novel before.
So now Ben was stumped. He stood silently in front of the cart, unable to part with any of the candies, looking deeply conflicted.
Jolene found it hilarious. She was about to take Emma over to the cookie aisle when she turned a little too quickly and bumped into someone.
“Sorry,” Jolene blurted out.
The person steadied her gently and said softly, “No problem. Have you picked everything?”
Jolene stepped back half a pace and looked up—only to realize it was Raymond.
The man definitely knew the store well. In just a few minutes, he’d already grabbed a pink child seat and a picnic blanket, moving with clear purpose.
Jolene swallowed and silently marveled at his shopping speed.
“You’re already done? Ben’s still deciding which candy to pick. It might take a few minutes—kids always need extra time to agonize over sweets…” Jolene couldn’t help the smile spreading across her face.
One reason was that she realized her theories actually worked well in practice. Another was that she discovered she actually had a knack for childcare—she’d successfully convinced Ben not to buy too much candy without making her employer think she was incompetent.
“I heard you. You handled that well. I didn’t realize he liked candy this much,” Raymond said, a faint smile crossing his face as he looked at the little boy still agonizing over the shopping cart.
“Do you usually not buy any for him?” Jolene asked.
In the two weeks she’d been here, she hadn’t really seen Ben eat much candy either.
Raymond paused, looking a little embarrassed. “He mentioned it—said his classmates were eating Twizzlers and wanted to buy a bunch to bring to school. I said no.”
“And then?” Jolene squinted, suspecting Ben might have thrown a tantrum.
Raymond curled his lips slightly, evidently recalling those days when Ben would clash with him and he’d been at a loss. “He cried at home, saying Mom never treated him like this—that she would’ve bought him lots of candy.”
Jolene clicked her tongue. Maybe the kid had been shown up at school and wanted his brother to buy a ton of candy so he could tell his classmates that he had all kinds they’d never even tried.
“Did you explain why to him, then?” Jolene tilted her head, watching the little boy still staring at the shopping cart with what looked like decision paralysis, and suddenly felt he was actually pretty easy to manage.
Raymond saw it too—his younger brother, who used to cry and scream all the time, suddenly seemed kind of adorable.
After they checked out, Ben was all smiles again. His careful deliberation had resulted in three chosen candies, and he was in a great mood.
When they arrived at Kite Hill, there was a massive slope with an open view—perfect for flying kites. Standing at the top, you could even see San Francisco’s colorful houses and the bay to the east.
Jolene showed Ben how to fly the kite. Ben grabbed the yarn and ran down the slope as fast as he could—and sure enough, the kite rose into the air.
It was a simple, homemade kite, not as easy to fly as store-bought ones, but it still got Ben and Emma running fast and laughing.
The best part was that the whole area was grassy—if the kids fell, it wouldn’t hurt at all. Jolene just had to keep an eye on them from the picnic blanket.
She sat on the blanket, and whenever the kids got tired, they’d come over for water and snacks.
Soon enough, Ben came running back and dragged Raymond into flying the kite with them.
Raymond ended up taking both kids, holding the purple yarn as he ran forward, with the two little ones chasing behind him, laughing loudly.
Sure enough, kids adored tall adults. Raymond was especially young—he looked like a fresh college graduate—and even Emma liked him a lot.
After everyone was finally worn out, Ben grabbed his chosen drink and chugged the whole bottle in one go. Then he shared his candy with everyone. Chewing on a gummy, he said, “Last time, George brought Twizzlers to school and kept saying I’d never tried them. I told him I had, but he didn’t believe me and kept telling me to bring candy to school to prove it!”
“So that’s what happened,” Jolene nodded, glancing at Raymond. “Maybe you could tell him that you already finished your stash at home and you’ll bring some next time. You don’t need to buy candy just to prove anything to anyone. Everyone has different opinions—he can choose not to believe you, and you can choose not to prove it. You’ve eaten it, and that’s that. What’s it got to do with him anyway?”
Jolene blinked. Wasn’t this just self-validation? Why prove yourself just because someone else doubted you?
But this might be a little hard for a five-year-old to grasp. However, Raymond, listening nearby, clearly understood—and realized that his immediate refusal had been too harsh. At the time, Ben had probably been asking for help, but he’d assumed Ben just wanted to show off at school.
Realizing he’d made a mistake, Raymond let out a breath and said softly, “Ben, last time I refused to let you buy candy for school without hearing you out. I didn’t know George was pressuring you to prove something. I’m sorry.”
Ben stopped chewing his Twizzler mid-bite, looking at his brother in surprise. “Oh? But Jolene said I didn’t need to prove anything. I stopped playing with him after that. He always made fun of me, saying I was fat and that his mom bought him all kinds of good stuff that I didn’t have.”
Jolene reached out and ruffled Ben’s hair. She hadn’t realized there was such a mean kid at school. Looking at it now, Ben was actually pretty well-behaved.
“If you don’t like him, don’t play with him. If you want to give him a taste of what he did to you, we can figure something out,” Jolene leaned in close to Ben’s ear and whispered.
“Let’s have Giovanni make Buzz Lightyear cake rolls for lunch tomorrow, then a Woody-shaped rice ball the day after, and an Arthur-themed lunch box after that,” Jolene said mysteriously. “Giovanni is a top chef your brother hired from an Italian restaurant. You can tell George that you get to order whatever you want at home every single day. And if he calls you fat? Tell him he’s ugly—but everyone’s different, and he shouldn’t feel inferior just because he’s ugly…”
Jolene wasn’t sure if this was the right thing to do, but this George kid sounded like a real bully, calling others fat. Ben was perfectly cute—where was he fat?
If anyone ever bullied Emma like that, Jolene would absolutely teach her to talk back.
She knew this might not be the proper way—you shouldn’t teach kids to point out others’ flaws—but letting someone get pushed around for nothing felt way too frustrating.
Ben’s eyes lit up—he’d just realized how amazing his personal chef Giovanni really was. But then a thought struck him, and he hesitated. “But George isn’t ugly—he’s actually pretty good-looking.”
Jolene: “…Oh. Well, that’s fine. Just call him a shorty then. There’s always something to work with.”
Ben: “…”
Raymond chuckled and shook his head beside them, but didn’t stop her.
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