As evidenced by previous posts, I HATE CHRISTMAS SHOPPING. I have endless patience with my children. I can be up to my eyeballs in autistic stimming, echolalia and hand-flapping with one kid, be checking math homework, making cookies and listening about the antics of those crazy kids on iCarly (AGAIN) with the other kid and STILL have more patience than I have out Christmas shopping.
I devoted this morning and early afternoon solely to finding Christmas gifts for Hallee, my oldest. This is like pulling teeth..shopping for an autistic 16 year old is so not fun.
Toys R Us. Everything lit up, made noise or had moving parts. Everything that didn’t was too babyish. Oh God, is that a Canadian tour bus coming? It is. I’m out of here.
Walmart. I just….oh man…flashback. The aisles I could get my buggy down gave me nothing. She had everything in the arts and crafts section that she wants or uses. They don’t have any Barney DVD’s in stock. I grab one Elmo Christmas DVD. Cashier named Sarah was very sweet and nice.
Target. Target is my “Don’t fail me now” store. I love the buggies. They’re the perfect height, wheel easily and are silent. I’ve been known to walk out of a store entirely before getting stuck with a bum buggy. A bum buggy ruins everything. Plus, clean bathrooms. Score! I saw so many cute things, dolls, figurines, games. But she would have hated all of them. She doesn’t know the new characters from Disney and doesn’t want to. She has never looked twice at a Barbie (Thank you, sweet baby Jesus) You know what I ended up with? 2 boxes of Annie’s Peace Parmesan and two packs of Angel Soft tp (Coupon, Target coupon and Cartwheel! Stock up!) Yeah. No presents.
Joann Fabric. Never been..but I had a 20% off coupon. I found some scrapbooking paper and two sticker books. That’s it. And the scrapbooking paper is for me.
I left the house at 8:30 this morning and got home at 1pm. 4.5 hours of serious shopping at 4 stores, covering every blessed corner of each store. And I got a freaking Elmo video and two sticker books for the poor kid. I’m hitting one of the pet stores next week while they are in school…my last ditch gift idea is a fish tank. Something soothing to watch, pretty fish, soft lights…should be good, right?? RIGHT?? *sobs*
And to top it all off (or bottom it, in this case), I accidentally put on a pair of the kid’s underwear this morning and spent 4.5 hours hiking up my drawers all over Bangor. If you had to witness it, I’m sorry. I would take two steps and pow! Down they went at the speed of light, right over my gut to my hips. Very uncool. And I wore leggings and a long sweater and a pea coat, so to try to pull them back up above crotch level took serious effort that was impossible to do with any type of stealth, and eventually I just stopped trying. So yeah. How was your day?
