I don’t even know where to begin! I have been so busy, but to say busy, sounds like I have been doing important things. That word is kind of confusing in the life as a stay at home mom…Taking care of my children, yes, important, of course… But everything else we fill our time with can arguably be considered silly and maybe a bit frivolous…the treats, Dunkin Donuts, the play dates, the activities, the crafts, the kid outings, the baking, the trinkets… The daily story of my life, and keeping us happy and busy YES, but groundbreaking science- not exactly! Oh well, chromosomes and plasma were never really my thing!

All of a sudden, the warm weather was upon us and I didn’t have “anything to wear!” Oh, woe is me…the damsel in distress… Well, perhaps I had something to wear but last summer, I didn’t buy anything except for statement necklaces…oh boy…last summer was the summer of obsessing about jewelry…I used to think I was insanely crazy with my quarterly obsessions… Make your own cleaners, researching about sunscreen, scrap booking, cooking everything from scratch, non stop baking, positive thinking, exercising, yoga, running, millions of challenges I make for self, and on and on.

But, recently I have come to a peace with my craziness…I mean, look at Madonna – she has gone through lots of stages…material girl, like a virgin, glam cowboy phase, blond ambition, old Hollywood glamour, wearing tea length dresses and writing a children’s book, the Sex stage when she was a dominatrix, YogaDonna, where she embraced her spiritual side,
Ray of light and Kabbalhaism, and many more…and she is a cultural icon.

I was thinking of this quote by a psychologist, “When your stressed, you obsess.”
This is very true of me! I always start feeling a bit uneasy about the ending of things, like the end of classes and school years, etc.. Not to mention that we have a family vacation planned to the shore in a few weeks, and I don’t know about you, but I am such a worrier about making sure we have everything we need! So does my friend who’s family we are going with… talk about a couple of neurotics, you should hear our conversations!

So, this past month has been a marathon of buying, online and in stores, and returning and returning and returning… Shopping with kids is awful, it’s like you have such a loss of control with them running around, touching everything, fighting with each other, whining, ugh! I have needed some sort of “refreshing beverage” almost every night after these torturous trips to the mall…

I am still at it and it’s been like five weeks since I stopped writing… I simply haven’t had the energy or a clear mind lately…the good news is tomorrow, I have my “last trip to the mall” for the summer and it is a big bag of returns…oh um, actually I am waiting for one last package to arrive so that may be only 98% true.

Ahh…shopping with kids is like being on another planet…

Miss Jocelyn
This was the name given to the pet balloon dog I bought for Gia at the mall. The girls love their gymnastics teacher so much that they name stuffed animals and other random pets with her name…

You know those balloons they sell at the mall that your child can drag around. I decided to buy the girls these balloons and Gia wanted the dog and Arianna wanted the tiger. Well, sure enough, five minutes after dragging the tiger around, he starts losing air…so I went back to the lady who sold us the balloon and she said that Arianna put a hole in it…she said, “Last one, next replacement you have to buy!”

We got a second tiger and were on our way…and then, the Tiger lost air again… I knew she couldn’t have possibly put a hole in it, so I marched back to the balloon kiosk and was ready to put up a fight – and no one was there!

We waited and waited and waited and finally the man working at the neighboring kiosk, came over and said he would try and help us. I told him our “tiger situation” and he gave us another balloon. I looked around in fear, crossing my fingers that the woman who ran the balloon store wouldn’t see us getting another balloon and yell at us… I could just see her face, red as a beet, scolding us, “I said no more balloons!”

Arianna wanted the Tiger -again! And I said, “No way!” Pick something else, she kept picking up the Tiger saying that all she wanted was the Tiger and I said, “Oh forget this- give me another dog please…” Never again with these balloons!

And after all that drama, we had an incident on the way home… Gia opened her window and out went Miss Jocelyn #1… And let me tell you, that was not a fun ride home… I saw Miss Jocelyn fly down the side of the highway, never to be seen again.

The Disney Store
Love the Disney store! It’s like free babysitting…they have this princess castle that the girls enjoy playing in and in the center of the store, there’s a large flat screen with a touch screen menu that children can pick a song that they want to listen to. One time, more like every time we’re in there, Arianna always picks Let it Go, and my daughter has a set of lungs on her and her voice is very deep…while I was browsing the princess bathing suits, I hear her belting out the words and I was on the complete other end of the store!

I went to go check out the concert and all of these moms were like “Wow, is she yours? The singer …She’s quite the entertainer!” Not to mention the dance moves and the modified worm she decided to show us! Never a dull moment!

These are pictures of Arianna “doing her moves” at the Disney Store.

The White House Black Market
Yikes, this store has been present in our lives for the past couple of months…it all started two months ago when I mistakenly stopped in there, asking for directions to a different store, I can’t even remember where I was trying to go…it seems sooo long ago…I was looking for something to wear to my twenty year high school reunion and I stumbled in there and started looking around, loving everything that I saw… Three hours later, I left with a lot less money in the bank, and a ton of clothes that were beautiful…but had to go back…well, not all of them, but a lot of them… it’s easy to get wrapped up in the moment, forget about the fact that I am a stay at home mom, not pulling in an income, and certainly, not needing all of these going out type of tops or work attire.
So, about a week later, I went back and returned many of the shirts, but bought a few more, and then started ordering clothes online, returning what didn’t fit, buying more, sneaking in quick outings to stores whenever I could…We were in the WHBM so many times, the associates got out markers and paper for the kids when they saw us coming… The girls immediately go to hug the dog statue, and then assume their position on the round bench by the shoes… (I haven’t been to the mall at all this past week, thank goodness!)

The obsessive shopping adventure has come to a screeching halt…and that screech was my husband’s angry phone call – darn, I should have pulled an Andrea from The Devil Wears Prada, and threw my phone in the woods when I saw his number!

Filling my closet with everything I need, or rather want, for the summer became a major project, and I can’t say that it wasn’t completely unfulfilling, I have been getting compliments wherever I go about a cute shirt or great earrings… Such the dilemma – looking good and spending money verses wearing the old stuff and being thrifty…everything fun comes with negative consequences… Cookies and brownies= weight gain, too much wine=major headache, too much couch and potato = flabby body and soul, too much relaxing=poor grades, low performance at work, and not being successful.

But, I spent way too much money, and I just need to be a bit more careful in the future!

Last thoughts about the past five weeks…Wetzel’s Pretzels, chicken nuggets and fries, milkshakes, car snacks, throwing coins in the fountain, fingering all the toys and jewelry on display on the kiosks, getting home late with cranky children, not having dinner made, telling the people asking to sign my kids up for modeling because they are so, so adorable that WE ARE NOT INTERESTED every time we walk by them, the girls begging to buy toys, meltdowns in the middle of the mall, fighting and not listening, and stealing odd pieces of medal (part of displays in Macy’s) …

Oy Vey! It has certainly been an exciting and exhausting adventure of a crazy shopping mom and her curious, lively girls.