Girls' Day Out

The first time I was pregnant, I secretly hoped for a girl. It had nothing to do with dressing her up in frilly clothes or styling her hair in perfectly coiffed French braids. At thirty-three, I was thrilled to be having a baby and would have happily left the hospital with either gender but having never had a brother, I was under the delusional impression that I was better equipped to deal with whatever a daughter might throw at me; that there would be fewer surprises. I also hoped that that fantasy daughter would someday turn out to be a friend that would share shopping trips and lunches to cute French bistros.

I never did master those tricky braids but I was blessed with a beautiful, smart, funny daughter. (I was also lucky enough to produce a male offspring a couple of years later but that's another story.) Since my sister had also been blessed with a daughter, we hoped the girls would turn out to be best friends (check) who wouldn't mind occasionally hanging out with their moms (check). What we could never have envisioned is that they would be kind enough to grace us with our first grandchildren within eight months of one another.

There may have been some great sales in the mall today. And that French bistro was probably serving a mean onion soup. But the four of us had no time for any of that. We sat on the floor of our mother's (Nana's) house, pouring over boxes of old photos, sharing a take-out lunch, and making every silly face we could think of to make the newest members of our family laugh.

No shopping bag full of bargains or fancy three-course meal can beat that.

This blog was originally published under Coleen's other blog ForeverAMom. You can check it out at  www.blogher.com/foreveramom

Chinese, Wine and Bargains

There is something so powerful about spending time with a bunch of women you care about. What you do doesn't matter. Where you hang out doesn't matter. The only thing that does matter is finding time to get together on a regular basis - something me and my gals seem to have had a little trouble with lately. One weekend wasn't about to rectify a year's worth of neglect but no one can say we didn't try.

I was late, as usual, so they start ed without me. By the time I arrived, cranky and tired from driving all day (car shopping with my kid but that's another story), they were already on their second glass of vino. We ordered Chinese and I tried to get less cranky. The wine and the lo mein did their magic and I managed to relax long before we sat down to watch old home videos - yes, home videos. There is nothing that my daughter and her cousin like doing better than watching (and laughing) at younger versions of themselves, making fun of their mothers' (my sister and I, of course) ill-advised wardrobe and hair choices along the way.

When we'd finally had enough tripping down memory lane, we moved on to more conversation. The continued consumption of alcohol made this discussion time a lot more interesting than our earlier version and lasted until our sentences were no longer making sense. We retreated to various beds and started up where we left off six hours later. Congregating on my niece's king-sized bed, we plotted the rest of the day. Now that we'd spent time eating, drinking and talking, there was only one thing left to do - shopping.

We headed for my niece's favorite bargain spot - The Sears Outlet Store. Before you laugh, I can tell you I left that store with five pajama tops and two bottoms and spent less than ten dollars and my daughter came out with a huge bag of work clothes for $26. Not laughing now, are you?

Later there was nothing to do but hug and kiss and promise each other that we would do this again soon. There we were, two generations of women who love hanging out with each other making a spectacle of themselves in the middle of the clearance aisle.

I wonder how soon Sears can restock those racks.