Happy Birthday To You

Yesterday my daughter, light of my life, turned the oh so very important age of 8.

Why is it so important? According to her, she's not an adult yet but she doesn't feel like a kid sometimes.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry......I think I'll laugh.

I took off work yesterday to help her celebrate. Mom, light of my life and I got up at 5:30 and left the house by 6:20 to drive 2.5 hours away to spend the day shopping and eating. Light of my life had received a couple of gift certificates that were burning a hole in her pocket. The two stores she received gift cards from are located within an hour of here, but mom wanted to drive to the big, big city 2.5 hours away to do some other major shopping. So, off we went.

We had breakfast at Cracker Barrel and then made our way to Toys R Us after dropping mom off at Barnes and Noble. Light of my life racked up at Toys R Us. She had received a $3 off coupon from Toys R Us as part of the Geoffrey's Birthday club as well as instructions to see a customer service rep once we went to the store. She had also received a $25 gift card from a friend for Toys R Us. We got there too early because the store wasn't even open yet. Once it opened, we went straight to the service desk. They were appropriately excited over a birthday girl in the house and gave her a balloon, a crown and a coupon for a free ice cream treat from a nearby restaurant. They then announced her name over the intercom and told everyone to wish her a happy birthday when they saw her. In order for them to know that it was her they were to wish a Happy Birthday, she had to wear the crown.

For those of you that know my daughter, this is a big NO-NO!!! That brings entirely too much attention to her. She's just like me in that regard. Being the center of attention is all right for some circumstances, but not in public like that. It didn't matter. There were so few people there that when they saw me holding the balloon, they wished her a happy birthday anyway.

She walked out of there with a couple of baby doll outfits, some diapers, a twin side by side stroller and a fake checkbook. She loves that fake checkbook. She's already written several checks. I think that's her favorite thing she's ever purchased.

Mom had given her $25 and a couple of other smaller happy gifts. My aunt and grandmother gave her $20 each. She also had a Claire's gift card and about 10 more dollars. I gave her The New Mario for her DS Lite. She loves that game.....so do I!

We then met mom at Barnes and Noble. This store was closing down and moving to a new location and as a result, they were having a blow out sale. I got 5 books for $16! Crazy, huh?

We then went to Michael's and Bed, Bath and Beyond. Did some shopping there. Nothing big deal.

On Monday, I had received a coupon in my e-mail from Chuck E Cheese for 20 free tokens for her birthday.

So, since the city we were in happened to have a CEC, we decided to go there for lunch. I love CEC. I could literally spend all day there.

We ended up getting 200 tokens total. This was by far the highlight of our day. We had a blast.

They have this game where, if you land on the yellow line, you can win tickets in the amount that's listed at the top. In this case, it was around 185. Because I (and others) kept playing and not winning, the pot kept getting bigger. When it hit 226 tickets, I managed to land on the line and won all those tickets. Can I just say that I was as proud of winning those tickets as I was when light of my life got Principal's Honor Roll for the first time? Does that make me a bad mother?

Anyway, she ended up having about 785 tickets in total and actually got some high quality crap from the prize center instead of the usual low-grade crap they have.

From there we went to Wal-Mart, Wal-Green's and then Target. We LOVE Target. I mean, obsessively, LOVE Target. Got some good deals there.

We went from there to Claire's, Old Navy, Linen's and Things, Borders and Hobby Lobby.

We then went to Logan's for dinner and let me tell you, it sucked. I love Logan's. I love their breaded mushrooms. I was so looking forward to this meal. However, they meal sucked due to bad customer service and cold food. We ended up barely eating anything and just heading back home.

Other than the blip at Logan's, we had a blast and light of my life said it was a wonderful birthday. Her party is in a couple of weeks (we're in the middle of Spring Break right now, so it wasn't the best timing to have a party last weekend or this coming weekend).

I still can't believe my baby's 8.

Later,

Mama Dawg