Mother/Daughter Shopping Day

I am not a shopper.  I like new clothes or decorative home upgrades from time to time, but I don’t generally have the desire to go pick them out.  (Not to mention my innate sense of style equals that of a rock.)  In my fantasy world, right behind having a chauffeur, I would have someone that would shop for me.  You know, learn my tastes, look through my house and wardrobe, and go get whatever I need that matches and is in style.  But in the meantime, while I hold my breath in vain for that, you could say I’m more of an on-line shopper—when I bother to shop at all.

But alas, shopping is in the genes of my husband’s family, and I have at least one daughter who has apparently been handed the torch.   And because the guilt of my I-have-never-taken-my-oldest-daughter-out-shopping conscience was pricking hard, I set pretty much the only open date we had left before school started.

Which is how it came to pass that Emily and I were out having a mother/daughter shopping day this last Saturday.  Tax-free Saturday.  Oh yeah.

I almost never go to the mall on a Saturday.  Going to the mall on a Saturday is like a curse word.  A really bad one that never gets even thought of, much less uttered.  So the first thing I noticed this particular day was a bunch of cars.  When I do go to the mall, it’s usually on a quiet weekday night.  So I also noticed the abnormally huge bunches of people.  And I have never never ever shopped on a Black Friday or any day like that, so the final thing I noticed was the super long lines.

So.  Much.  Fun.

But you know what?  I took a deep breath, told myself (out loud repeatedly) it was all ok because we weren’t in a hurry, and I actually had a good time with my daughter, out shopping just the two of us, for the first time ever.  (I know.  I KNOW!)  We bought shoes, jewelry, funky-smelling body washes and hand soaps, ate at the food court and again at the cookie place.  We held our ears and bravely kept shopping when the fire alarm went off because the Chick-fil-a kitchen was on fire.  We raced another family to an open bench and won.  (We scoochied down to the end of it so they could share).  We were limping by the end, trying to pawn the bags off on each other.  It was a really good time. 

We came home, showed off all our stuff, put it all away, and then I promptly sat down with Emily and placed three online orders for things we couldn’t find because there was no way I was going back out again the next day to look again somewhere else.

Mother/daughter shopping at its finest, baby.

Small steps.