Books and Shopping

 Today I had a date day with Hannah. I originally thought we might go do an Easter event, but then I thought she probably wouldn't enjoy something with a suspicious giant bunny. Instead I took her to story time at Barnes and Noble. I was really glad I didn't take her to an Easter thing because she was really intimidated by the three other kids there and insisted I hold her the entire time and pretty much refused to interact with anyone despite the lack of huge bunnies.

After story time, we moved on to activities that were more her speed. I let her pick a book (I rarely go to physical book stores, but I love books, including children's books. I could have happily spent a long time there) and then we want to the cafe where I let her choose a snack while we read our new book. She is a girl who knows what she wants. I thought she would pick a cookie, but as soon as she saw the chocolate mousse, she said she wanted that and chocolate milk. She was a happy girl.

After the bookstore, I took her on some errands I had to run. With the other kids, I feel guilty if I have to take them on errands on a date day, but very few days go by that Hannah does not ask to go shopping so she was pretty pumped. We started at Beauty Brands, which Hannah did appreciate the array of colorful nail polishes, but she was extremely disappointed in the lack of shopping carts. Apparently carts are key to her shopping experience. So then we went to Target and she was really happy. She also likes Target because of their decor. They have these neon light arches on their walls. She thinks they are rainbows. Except she calls rainbows sunsets. So she is always talking about how great it is that they have all the sunsets.

After Target, I needed to go to the liquor store real quick, which they did have shopping carts, but I was just buying one tiny thing so we didn't use a cart and that was again a disappointment. However, the guy at the checkout gave her a sucker, so that pretty much made her day.

After that, we really only had time for one thing before lunch. I gave her a choice of going to buy clothes for baby Steven or going to the park. She chose the park, which surprised me. So we went to Indian Creek park, which is a great 'little kid' park. She has definitely gotten way more independent all of the sudden. She created this circuit where she would climb over the arch, take the zip line across the structure, take the ladder to the slide, go down the slide, and do it all over again. I don't have pictures of most of that because she is still not super steady on some of those things, or doesn't totally realize how to do it. For example, she just lets go of the zipline when she is almost to the end. She wouldn't be seriously injured since it's not that high, but it definitely would be a fall, so I spot her on the things she is less steady on, which makes it impossible to get photos. After that, we decided to get some lunch. I had planned to take her to McDonalds on the way home and have her eat at home, but she was very insistent she wanted to eat at a restaurant. But I haven't been able to stomach McDonalds since getting a flu bug after eating it on our Thanksgiving road trip, so instead we got Mexican. Luckily she is not yet insistent that she wants a toy with her meal and almost every place has chicken fingers or nuggets, so we were both able to enjoy our lunches. We had a fun date day and I think she really enjoyed our activities. Except maybe story time.