Retail therapy

Lest anyone think Sydney has been neglected this past week in the excitement of AJ's return to school, never fear. My Friday "date" with AJ, was followed Saturday with a Mommy/Sydney day. And at the risk of sounding way too stereotypical, while Jeff and AJ went fishing, Sydney and I spent our girl time together... shopping.

Sydney discovered a new favorite store at the mall. It's called Claire's. I've always avoided the place, but with display after display of cheap, gaudy jewelry and hair accessories, it's the stuff of wannabe princess dreams.

After successfully navigating the check-out line that was packed with way too many other moms with young back-to-school shoppers, Sydney and I headed for the food court. Behold the power of POP (point-of-purchase) advertising! While waiting to order an ice cream cone at the dual-concept Dairy Queen/Orange Julius, Sydney spotted a backlit translight (anybody impressed yet with all the useless marketing jargon I'm able to spew out?) advertising fruit smoothies.

I can only wonder how many more years she'll think it's the coolest thing ever to share a treat with her Mom. We'd drink from our straws at the same time so that our noses would touch. Sydney would grin, then laugh and order me to do it again.

She also had to check out her new purchases. Note the flower barrettes, lip gloss and jewel-studded mirror. How could you not love Claire's?

Besides the mall, we stopped at a couple other stores to look for things I needed. I tried to introduce Sydney to the wonder of Pier One Imports, but with easy-to-break items everywhere we turned, it wasn't her favorite place. Until we found a flower-covered dish-scrubbing brush. Watch for a future blog post involving that! If Cinderella had one of those, she wouldn't have needed her Prince Charming.

We also walked next door to ShopKo, which apparently Sydney didn't know had a toy section. She does now. I'd promised her she could get another Barbie Doll, and there we found Barbie as the Fairy from the Barbie Fairy Princess DVD that Sydney already has. Waahaaaaa! (Imagine a chorus of angels singing hymns of great joy.) This was the most exciting find ever!   

Back in the car, Sydney took the above photo with my phone. She quickly announced Barbie Fairy Princess would be her show and tell item the next time she went to daycare. And pretty much every day since I've been asked, "When can we go back to ShopKo?"

With AJ back in school, the Mommy/Sydney tradition can again resume each Friday. If last week's adventure is any indication, we're going to have a lot of fun.