SATURDAY ERRANDS
‘Are you doing any Saturday errand runs tomorrow’, came the text at almost 22,00 last night.
‘Most likely’, I replied. I had planned to go early in the morning before my son awoke, but after my walk.
‘Cause I was gonna ask to go. Just for fun’, came the reply. I was pleasantly surprised to hear from my middle daughter asking to spend time with me. I can imagine it to be every alienated parent’s dream to hear from the children they believed they had lost. Certainly, it was nothing I ever imagined would happen had you asked me this time last year. But things were already on their way to getting better in the past few months.
Time has an interesting way of paving the way for things that are meant to be in our lives at the precise time that we are to receive them. Most of the time, when we force things our way, they will end up backfiring and we will regret forcing the issue. Waiting is never easy. Especially when it concerns the people closest to us.
The plan was to pick up my daughter around 9 this morning. However, I was just returning from my walk when she texted that she needed more time. That was fine with me as I had yet to shower and get ready as well. Both of us despise this time of year. The time when allergies riddle our faces with redness and swelling from the cedar pollen. When we look anything but ourselves. Despite that fact, we made an effort to enjoy our time together.
Our first stop was for coffee and treats at a coffeeshop I had visited last month with my son. The cappuccinos were good. The scone was good too. The croissant, not so good. But the atmosphere was very different than the typical Starbucks experience and reminded me a bit of the coffeeshops we will soon see on our trip to Europe.
We talked. And then talked some more. The experience being quite different than with my son who could talk about Legos for hours. My daughter, however, loves fashion and beauty. She enjoys collections of makeup and skin care products. And of clothes. I loved seeing her excitement as she talked about things which interest her at this moment in time. But I was saddened to hear about the treatment my daughters experience at their father’s place, with her stepmother riffling through her and her sister’s rooms and taking anything and everything she desires or does not believe they ought to have. Such as the fragrances and clothes, some of which I purchased.
After the coffeeshop, we drove to Central Market to buy a few things for the next week. I liked that my daughter enjoyed the simple errand of shopping for food. We found some allergy medication to try. Drops to dilute into water which hopefully will help. My older daughter called her sister in the meantime and wondered why she didn’t wake her to come along. We hurried through the store gathering our choices, checked out, and drove to my place to drop off the food before driving to get my older daughter and a friend.
My older daughter asked where we were going. I told her it was a surprise. When we arrived, she was delighted that we were at the mall. We walked around for about two hours, browsing the girls’ favourite stores. Starting with Earthbound and Lululemon. Ending with Hollister, PacSun, and Garage. I bought a summer dress for Cinnamon for our trip to Croatia and strappy black top for Saffron. I also added to Cinnamon’s Victoria’s Secret beauty products collection and also bought something for myself. And not to leave out my son, we stopped by the Lego store and bought him the small rabbit set which he built immediately.
The day ended with setting hair appointments and dropping off my daughters’ friend. As we drove towards their father’s house, my middle daughter looked uneasy. She did not want to stay at her father’s house. I told her she was welcome to stay at my place. I waited for her as she gathered her things for her overnight stay, including her backpack to work on homework.
When we walked into the apartment, my daughter commented on how it did not have the ‘Mama smell’, rather a new apartment smell. My son and I are still in the process of emptying boxes and setting up our new apartment, but in time it will be better than the old place.
My daughter then settled into her brother’s room to start working on homework as my son worked on building his new Lego set and then rebuilding old sets. I was in the main area looking through a small bag when I finally located the children’s favourite buttermilk pancake recipe that I wrote over three years ago. It was one of the last items I grabbed as we left the old place and I was glad I finally found it.
The remaining hours of the day were spent sitting around the table eating dinner and then later, some Croatian cookies. Something so simple as sitting around the table, running Saturday errands, and watching a movie takes little effort but makes a great impact on the lives of our children. Those little things are the ones remembered years later and are most important for making memories.
