Memories, School Clothes & Bears

Gotta love those grand kids! My Caraline can make me happy on the worst of days.

My daughter, Rachael, my granddaughters, Kassidy & Caraline and I were driving home from our annual back to school shopping trip in Huntsville this past Saturday and out of the blue Caraline says, "Mommy, Nanny and Kassidy, thank you all for one of the most specialist days of my life". Too sweet.....right.

Now I'll go in reverse, on the way to Huntsville she has chattering non stop. Her conversation went something like this" I didn't eat breakfast, I just had a sucker and I licked it a few times and I threw it in the garbage. My teacher gave it to me. Can we go to Build A Bear? Can I spend the night with you? Nanny, my Mommy yells at me". Whoa, where did that come from?

Kassidy had the "ear disease" the entire time we were in the car so she did not speak or respond when spoken to ( Ipod inventor, I'll get you someday). I was happy to see she brought along a book to read in the car, something by William Shakespeare or Stephanie Meyer's, I believe. Okay, it was Stephanie Meyers. We were left with Caraline to entertain us for the hour long drive and she did a great job!

I had earlier in the week received my coupon book from the Build a Bear store which I shared with Caraline. She held an open forum for the next hour on build a bears discussing the pros and cons of purchasing a blue peace bear vs the black peace bear. The bunny was really cute, too and the puppies were adorable. School clothes were now a secondary concern as getting to the nearest Build a Bear store became our main objective.

The excitement mounted as we pulled into the Parkway Mall parking lot and headed straight for the store. Caraline only took minutes to decide on the blue peace bear. She picked out a heart for her bear, kissed it and placed it inside the bear, a little cotton stuffing was inserted into the bear and we were good to go, right? WRONG! It is illegal to take a naked bear out into the world. We had to find suitable apparel for the bear and fortunately bear clothing was for sale right in the Build A Bear store. Thank you Build a Bear creator for having the forethought to include a line of clothing for your critters.

Two malls, dept stores, a trunk full of shopping bags, two meals, a milkshake stop and one emergency french fry stop later and we were finally home. Isn't life funny? Special days can come out of nowhere when we least expect them to. I guess life is better when you let it happen without expectations. Caraline wasn't expecting a new bear on a back to school shopping trip and look what happened.