Girls at mall

Today, we took the kids to the mall so the girls could spend the various gift cards they received at Christmas. I would have thought that spending a couple of hours at a mall with three adolescents would be the end of me, but it wasn’t. I had forgotten how traumatic shopping for clothes can be for teen girls, though. I forgot how hard they can be on themselves.

I took my camera and shot some new desktops. We wandered in and out of stores I spent time in when I was not that much older than they are now. As a teen in a group placement home, we spent a lot of time wandering around the Northridge Mall. Reminds me of how we used to dress up to go there and why I need to let my daughter do that, too. Funny how much you have to remember, even when you think you know exactly what they're feeling. Makes me wonder how long it will be before it really hits home that it is of necessity that my children one day be virtual strangers to me, full of thoughts and ideas and experiences I cannot understand and would be shocked to find in them.

ANYWAY. I had a good time with my kids. My husband said to me that two hours shopping feels like an eight hour shift at his second job, so I am guessing it was not his cup of tea. Tomorrow, I think we’ll take the kids where there are some birds and something green leafy things and rocks my husband can climb on. That will make him happier, I think. Of course, I’ll get you pics.

I have to do laundry. As I was gathering the dirty clothes, I came across the stuff I need to wear to the Big Secret Important Event coming up. Yea. A dose of reality already richly steeped in same.