Shopping

Today was a good day. Even if I spent the whole day doing one of my least favorite things. I spent the just about the entire day shopping. However, I also got to do one of my favorite things. Spending time with my kids. The day started with breakfast before school with Matt. We decided to try a new spot and were fairly disappointed. There is nothing worse than burnt pancakes for breakfast. It was a pretty quiet breakfast since Matt seemed to be a bit down. I tried to get him talking but quickly realized that I best just sit quietly and just enjoy his company. Once I got Matt to school I came back to the farm to pick up Abby and head off to the mall.

One of the things that I have been putting off has been purchasing new bedding for Matt. He needed it all. New comforter, comforter cover, mattress pad, sheets and pillow cases. Who new a comforter needed a cover? Abby informed me it was actually called a duvet cover. While I'm on the subject, let me say a duvet cover must have been invented by a masochist. Have you ever tried to put a cover on a comforter? It's akin to pushing a chain or trying to put on wet socks. Anyhow, we got to Macy's and I proceeded to educate myself in the art of purchasing bedding. After almost two hours of pestering sales people with questions and going back and forth through the whole department we left with what seemed to me to me a mountain of bedding. After a tasty Philly cheese steak at the food court it was off to follow Abby through the process of her trying on what seemed to be a thousand different pieces of clothing. This kid can shop. The thing that tickles the snot out of me is that she actually wants my input on what is cute and what is not. I suppose it goes back to when I first had to do all the shopping after we lost Lisa. I would take Abby with me and we would actually have fun shopping together. I figure she enjoyed it due to the fact that she new more what we were doing than me and she had the opportunity to school me on something. She would tell me what store to go to and she would show me where in the store everything was. She would make sure that I bought the right brand, the brand momma always bought. I would constantly ask her were did mom buy this or where would mom go for that. I think she got a degree of satisfaction knowing that she was able to make things easier for me. And she did make it a lot more bearable. Ever since, she will jump at the chance to shop with dad.

After we finished hitting just about every store in the mall it was back to the farm. I got home and slapped the new bedding on Matt's bed. Then it was off to get Matt from school and take him to purchase new dress clothes. He has outgrown most of his dress clothes. He needed some new dress shoes, pants and shirts. If you can keep him from wandering off he is pretty easy to shop for and with. He is not hard to please and is pretty straight forward in what he likes and what he does not like. He needs no reassurances on what I think. He either likes something or he doesn't. This took a couple of hours and then we got dinner and took in a movie.

All in all it was a pretty good day. I promised the kids that we would take it easy this weekend and spend some time together. This was a pretty good start to what still might turn out to be an emotional weekend for us all. Mother's day is Sunday...