Birthday Shopping

Here's Nana's report of her annual trip with Robin to pick out a birthday dress.. too funny:

Hi Beth and Craig:
As promised, here is my account of my day with Robin yesterday:

Picked her up at school and the first thing she wants to hear about is stories of Uncle Brian when he was little and getting into trouble…”like the poo story” she said. So we talked about the poo story briefly and then I told her the one when Brian and Andy Cullen peed in the garage of a neighbour and the neighbour was kind of mean and upset with the boys. Then she wanted to hear stories about Uncle Stephen and I told her the one about Stephen playing in the dishwater but denying it and saying his finger was just “looking” at the water! Her comment was “Uncle Stephen is smarter than Uncle Brian”!! Not sure how she made this deduction but think it might have something to do with the poo versus dishwater the guys opted to play with??

As we are pulling into Sherway, she asked if we could do the shopping before we ate so off we went. First to Gymboree where the result was “I don’t like that”, I don’t like that” etc. as she scanned all the dresses in the store. Next to the Gap where we were approached by a lady giving out coupons. No dresses peaked her fancy there either although she spotted some shoes she liked. On to The Children’s Place where, again, none of the dresses appealed. She saw some plastic, brightly coloured gladiator sandals which she quite liked but I explained that we needed to get the dress first. So next stop was Sears…this is the same pattern we took last year. We walk into the children’s dept and she immediately spotted this awful dress which would be something a kid would wear to a wedding or something I guess…mauve, halter top, flowy and made of that material (tulle) which some mother of the brides would choose. Luckily they did not have her size even though she suggested I ask the sales lady if they had more. She did spot one other dress…in a very bright lime green with white accents, uneven hem but quite cute. So we tried on a size 7 and size 8 and we both liked the 8 on her. I said we could go to one more store (the Bay) and check it out but she said “But I like this dress”…. so sold! Then back to the The Childrens Place for the gladiator sandals as the colour was a good match(chosen by her). She was able to tell which greens actually went with the lime green dress. She asked if she could also have a purse, sunglasses and headbands which of course was fine with me..this we have done every year so her expectations are realistic!!... So off to the Gap again but we didn’t see anything in the purse line which she liked. When we went into the Gap again, the same lady came to ask if we had received the coupon and I told her we had….As we walked away, Robin said “She’s annoying”. I totally lost it and started laughing. “Oh Robin you are too funny”. She wanted to know what the lady was talking about so I explained the coupon thing.

Next store, back to Gymboree..nothing there. We are now close enough to the Bay so we checked it out. They had no purses or accessories to speak of. So she said she liked one of the purses in the store with the basement so all the way back to Sears where she picked a sparkly turquoise blue purse to match the lime green dress??
So we walked back and forth for almost two hours and she runs, pulls me by the hand, bounces up and down while she walks etc. She is SO DAMNED CUTE!!
Then to the Pickle Barrel for lunch. She had a very big plate of pasta with sauce, a salad and fruit. I asked her if she would like to take off her runners and put her new sandals on to wear home…she says “here?” (in the restaurant) and I said “sure”. So she answers, “it’s kind of weird but ok”. Luckily we did this as walking through the mall to leave, she complained that the sandals were hurting her feet. So back to Children’s Place and exchanged for a bigger pair and she said they were “a lot” better. They exchanged them without question even though she was wearing them which I thought was pretty good.

We had a couple of lovely moments…once in the store when she leaned against me with her arm around my leg and we were very still for several seconds while we looked at the purses. Then again when I went to leave the house after dropping her off, she came running down the stairs and wrapped her arms around my neck and gave me a very quiet, long hug. One of those incredibly joyous moments!!

So, we had lots of fun and I had a wonderful day with your beautiful daughter.

PS. The purse zipper broke by the time we got home so I brought it back with me and will get her something else tomorrow.

Anyway, she also asked if bees can fly backward and I certainly couldn’t answer it so will google it now and send an email to her. Craig, would you please read it to her.

Love
Mom/Barb