An afternoon at the mall

Yesterday Jane and I had the most delightful outing, making me realise all over again how glad I am to have a little girl and how much fun we shall have together. First we went to get her portrait taken at Picture People. Now I highly recommend, to everyone who has a child or two, signing up on Picture People's mailing list, because they are constantly coming out with free picture promotionals. At this point we have on display about four or five pictures of Jane, absolutely free. The disadvantage, of course, is that we have only the one copy on display, and had to exercise tremendous sales resistance not to spend a lot of money to buy the complete package, but at least one professional quality portrait is better than nothing! And I love dressing her up and taking her in to get her picture taken.

After the adorable little child smiled and laughed at the camera, we walked across the street and had lunch at Chik-fil-A. (Another place I highly recommend signing up on the mailing list for - we had a coupon for a free sandwich with purchase of drink.) While there I noticed a promotional on the cup for the Million Nugget Giveaway (www.millionnuggets.com), which has a lot of incomprehensible rules and prizes involving football, but which ends up giving away a coupon for a free Dr. Pepper if you enter to win. Not having a watch, I had no idea how quickly the time passed but I knew I had an hour to spend before the pictures were ready, so we wandered back through the mall, stopping at various stores to admire ourselves in the mirrors (Jane loves looking in the mirror, although I don't think it's dawned on her yet who that baby in the mirror actually is). It was such fun wandering through the mall with a happy little girl, who was cheerfully chewing away on her thumb and making soft gurgling noises while passers-by admired and complimented her, and contemplating all the bargains we were getting. Of course the pictures turned out beautifully, and it was sheer agony to choose just one for the free 10x13, but we made up our minds at last and came home well satisfied with our day.

I felt exactly like Merry and Pippin, having enjoyed a taste of the high and adventurous life but reveling in the simple pleasures of Old Toby and Stout. We don't last long on the heights, bless my buttons!