The kids and I spend a lot of time in Barnes & Noble. Partly because it's something to do, but mostly because I love to buy books. All kinds of books. I buy a lot of children's books and since having kids, mostly non-fiction for me. I read a lot of books on child rearing, books on politics and above all else, I love cookbooks. My love of food and cooking will be a common theme in my blogs. Lately though, I've been keeping the Dummies books in business: Blogging for Dummies, How to Get Published for Dummies, Search Engine Optimization for Dummies...you get the picture.
I also buy a lot of books from Amazon.com, as I find filling my electronic shopping cart up highly enjoyable! But there's just something very comforting to me in walking into any bookstore and walking out with a book that I get to take home and read, or at least flip through, right away.
On one of our recent outings to B&N, my daughter was eyeing a couple of those stuffed toys that they sell. This time she wanted Ho Ho and Tolee from that cartoon, Ni Hao, Kai-Lan.
I said no to the toys that day but told her that she could add them to her list for Santa. She was upset and also worried that by the time Christmas came around, there would be none left in the store for Santa to buy for her. I wanted a quick end to the conversation, so I told her not to worry about it and that I'd send Santa an e-mail as soon as we got home.
I wasn't expecting the sudden look of excitement and happiness that spread all over her face....."You're friends with Santa?!!!" I've never seen anyone so impressed with me than in that moment.
Side note... although I tell her to put things she wants on her list for Santa, I am clear about the fact that Santa does not buy everything on the list. That being said, in this instance, I felt compelled to come through with Ho Ho and Tolee.
So, I went back to the store while she was at school one day and was really excited that there were some left. I picked them up and thought how great it was going to be that she'd think that Santa made a special trip to the bookstore just for her, all because of an e-mail from her mommy. I knew there wasn't going to be time to drop the bag off at home before pick-up, so I thought that a clever thing to do would be to pick up a small book to give her that day. This way there wouldn't be a lot of questions as to the contents of the bag.
She WAS super excited about the book. We had errands to run so I threw it back in the bag.
Our first stop was lunch and then the hair salon (we both needed haircuts) and I didn't give the book another thought. We get to the salon and as I'm sitting there in the chair, I suddenly hear, "OOOOOOH, Mommy, thank you so much!" I turned around to see my daughter holding Tolee in one hand and Ho Ho in the other.
She had discovered the toys while going into the bag, to take out the book, that I so cleverly bought for her that day.
Deep sigh.
No comments:
Post a Comment