Yesterday was the first day in about three weeks that Caroline and I didn’t have anywhere to be or anything we had to do. We spent much of the morning in our pajamas and finally headed out to run a few errands around 10:30 a.m.
This is the sad reality of motherhood. When you wake up at the crack of early, it seems like you’ve already lived half a day by 10:30 a.m.
I told Caroline we were going to run some errands and she ran in her room to get dressed. Heaven help me, the wardrobe issues are going to be the death of me.
It’s like living with J.Lo back when she was all “Jenny from the block and don’t be fooled by the rocks that she got”, and not Mrs. Marc Anthony.
Frankly, I miss the old J. Lo.
Caroline came out of her room wearing jeans that were about three inches too short, pink cowboy boots, a sleeveless floral print top, and a necklace that she fashioned out of two bracelets that came from Vacation Bible School that say “When in doubt, PRAY!” and “PRAY without ceasing”.
Which is exactly what I do every morning when she gets dressed.
And just for that extra bit of flair, she was carrying her Hello Kitty purse, had her huge sunglasses up on her head and was carrying a coffee thermos. I bet five dollars she and Mary Kate Olsen had on the same outfit yesterday.
But since I am beat down by the wardrobe and, inherently, there isn’t anything wrong with it, other than the fact that she looks like a hobo, I just went with it and we headed out to run some errands.
Our first stop was the mail store and then we walked down to the drugstore to pick up a few other things. This was a critical error on my part because there is a pet store in between the drugstore and the mail store.
Caroline begged to go in the pet store and I thought “What the heck, it’s summer. Let the girl have some fun!”, because what says summer fun like hearing a parrot squawk until your ears bleed?
Of course all she wanted to see were the rodents. And I have never been more grateful that she can’t read yet because there was a big sign on the cage of the Siberian Hamsters that said “FREE TO GOOD HOME. ASK YOUR PARENTS.”
Oh, that’s just what I need. A free Russian rodent that would, no doubt, demand high-dollar vodka, caviar and repeated viewings of Anna Karenina.
She was particularly interested in seeing what she called “the feeder mice”.
I asked, “What are the feeder mice?”
“They are the mice that you feed to snakes. Can we buy some to take to the ranch to feed the snakes?”
“What did you say, baby?” Mama couldn’t hear you over the gagging and her brain spontaneously combusting.
“I want to buy some feeder mice to feed the snakes.”
I suspect that someone has recently visited the pet store with her daddy, because the only mice she knows about from me are the kind that make dresses for Cinderella or hang out with ducks who don’t wear pants.
And I’m keeping it that way.
