Every now and again I get this idea in my head that it’s fun to take the kids shopping. I get grand plans to take them to a bigger town, more stores, maybe even a mall! I think we’ll check out all the different stores, maybe find new fashion styles they like (they are dang pre-teen/teens already!), hang out, have fun. After today I’ve officially given the kids permission to slap me when I get this notation again. It’s never fun. I mean, it’s fun to hang out with the kids, but shopping just sucks. Here’s what today looked like. Hour drive to the closest Target. Their back-to-school section is lame and picked over (kinda my fault as school starts in a week). Their kid clothes sections are small. The clothing in general is missing way too much fabric. We were looking for long sleeves and pants, ya know, back to school clothes, but mostly found tanks, crop-tops, weird pant-like things. Eve had zero interest (thankfully!). The kids don’t like shopping, they can’t manage to find things on their own (’cause they don’t like shopping and therefore don’t try), they wander around aimlessly and get silly with each other. Really, the most fun we had at Target was trying to figure out how to attach the cup holder to the cart to hold my tasty Starbucks iced tea. We were tired by the end of that (we have zero shopping endurance), but decided to check out a nearby mall as we still had lots of stuff on our list. The mall was deserted!! Half of the stores were empty or closed (on a Friday afternoon??) and the place was just weird. We did find a shoe store and bought some shoes, but certainly it wasn’t any better than the shoe store on 12A. We were exhausted by this point and succumbed to the siren call of the candy store, which was really the brightest, nicest looking store in the whole mall! After a sugar break we headed back to the car with the plan to go to Staples and get the rest of the school supplies. Of course, we found an Olive Garden on the way, realized we were hungry, and stopped for dinner. Breadsticks galore! Finally we stopped at Staples and got everything we needed. The store was well stocked and plentiful, but no better than our local Staples. Then an hour drive home, in the rain and bright lightening. We successfully got our school supplies, spent lots of money, and used up half a day… but really we could have just hit West Leb and been done in half the time and half the money. Sigh. Note to self: we aren’t a shopping family. We drop fast! On the bright side, we do have fun together! :)