Shopping with the girls...

It was Friday night and the mood was somber. Zane was on his way out to spend a final evening with his best/girl friend. Dad was gone for the weekend. Taylor had just "dumped" her "boyfriend" (a very good choice, indeed). Delaney was reeling from her recent orthodontic adjustment. Then there was Mom... There's just no delicate way to say this.... on day sixteen of her second period since Halloween, and starting to feel more than a little, umm, drained.

Any sane woman would have curled up with a heating pad and Jack Daniels called the doctor, but I come from a long line of women who refuse to admit anything is wrong until someone forcibly delivers them to the doctor, or body parts start to fall off, whichever comes first. I was not going to let my dear, sore at heart, and tooth, girls spend the night watching Hannah Montana reruns and bickering over who's feet were on whom.

Plus, it's eighteen days until Christmas and the presents are not buying themselves. What we needed was a little retail therapy and some good food too. So off we went to the mall. We didn't actually go into the mall (that would have been crazy) but to the mall outside of the mall... the mall annex...
Don't you love the way malls have morphed into something like a university of commercial indulgence? We have mall central, the institute of higher shopping, all of your basics in one megolithic structure. Then on the outskirts of the campus we have the annexes of specialized shopping (Talbots, Ann Taylor, boutique jewelry) for those more advanced in shopping skills, or conversly, the remedial annex (Target and Big Lots) for the continuation shoppers.
Anyway... back to my story..
Our first stop was for food since Taylor had skipped lunch because the "breakup" had upset her stomach, and Delaney had been unable to eat because her teeth hurt. We needed something special, and easy to chew. The extremely thin crust pizzas at I.talia were a perfect fit, and a table in front of the enormous open fire pizza oven was heavenly. While we waited we played with the "make your own pizza" toy on the table. Pretend pizza baking quickly became an impromptu fractions lesson. It does a mathphobic mother's heart good to see girls enjoying division. After pizza came the gelato... the perfect combination of teeth comforting cold and heart soothing chocolate.. before we knew it all three of us were giggling, and one of us had a chocolate mustache. (no, not me)

After dinner we went to Borders Books and the girls picked out books for their cousins. Two hours of discussion and debate eventually produced perfect books for eleven unique individuals. They were focused and thoughtful and, despite hundreds of tempting books, neither of them asked for anything. Our only disappointment was that the wrapping station had shut down for the evening and we will be forced to wrap our own gifts. Perhaps Saturday will be wrapping day...