So Good!

Today, Alice’s school was open, but Helen’s was not. So we took Alice to school at 9am and Helen and I had a Mommy-Helen morning. It was nice.

As soon as I got in the car after dropping Alice off, Helen announced, “Now we’re going to Mary M&Ms!” This is what she calls the quilt shop, because the owner’s name is Mary, and Mary always has a jar of M&Ms at the cash register. Helen and Alice LOVE Mary. With all of their stomachs. Well, as it was 9:07, and Mary keeps bankers’ hours, we couldn’t go to the quilt shop yet.

So we went to Verizon instead and changed my plan a little bit — so now I have unlimited text messaging to other Verizon customers, and 250 text messages to non-Verizon customers per month as part of my plan. I didn’t have to change my minutes allowance, though — I very rarely go over that. So. We’ll see if this helps the bill much; it should make a good difference. A group of friends and I text message a LOT, and my lowly little plan wasn’t covering it well at all. That should change now.

Helen was very good in the store, except for one time that she disappeared and went behind a partition. Thankfully, the person helping me was understanding that I had to run across the store mid-sentence and retrieve my child; after that Helen was perfect and waited patiently on a bench, inasmuch as a three-year-old can be still.

I also shopped for phones, since I have $100 credit towards a new one. But my current phone is fine (except for the fact that there’s not a camera connected to it, which frustrates Nancy), so I’m in no great hurry. That credit doesn’t expire, so no problem there. Jerry is likely to get a new phone soon, and then I’ll leech off of his research so I don’t have to do any myself. 😀

After that we went to Target and wandered around. I came this close to buying all of the supplies to completely redo the downstairs bathroom in an ocean theme, because everything (EVERYthing) was in the $1 bins — curtain rings, toothbrush holders, etc. But since I wasn’t looking to do that today, I resisted. I have a plan for that bathroom already rolling around in my head, and it doesn’t involve fish. It does, however, involve paint that I already own. That doesn’t match the fish. So I’m proud of myself for this resistance, even though Helen was very interested in the fish.

And THEN we finally went to Mary M&Ms. I didn’t *need* anything, since I had been in just before going to Disney World, but Helen really wanted to go, so we went. And I pawed fabric and visited with Mary, and enjoyed it. She’s turning 50 at the end of the month, so she’s having a sale on her birthday where you can get ONE thing for 50% off, so I scouted around the shop for possibilities…. I have a few ideas of what I could buy at 50% off, so that if someone goes in and clears her out of those things, I won’t go home empty-handed (as IF that would happen anyway). Helen had a great time running around the store, playing with the toys that Mary has available for kids, eating chocolate, and drinking water out of the water dispenser.

Then we met my mom for lunch. I called her to see if she’d like to have lunch with me and Helen, and she was very oddly enthusiastic about saying yes. When she arrived, I found out why. My father has been retired for one month today. He is driving her CRAZY. She didn’t even invite him to join us for lunch, because she just needed a break. She has been a stay-at-home-mom for…. almost 37 years. She sat down, and the first thing to spill out of her mouth was the comment, “I have controlled my own schedule for… what….? almost forty years???” Her eyes were kind of wild. No more needed to be said. It was a nice lunch.

Helen was SO good all morning. She said she had a wonderful time, and I know I did. It’s fun that she’s getting old enough to take places and know that she’s going to be reasonably civilized.