Saturday, August 19, 2006

Sunglasses in my pocket

Sometimes I get these thoughts in my head, ideas of what I want to do, and I have to do it or I go crazy! My niece, for certain reasons, is living with my inlaws temporarily. Her mom, my husband's sister, died in November 2004, and since then my brother in law has been a major pain in this family's neck. So he has gotten himself in a little trouble and had to call on my inlaws for help. Typical.
A very wise friend of mine, who lost her husband and had to go through the pain of seeing how her son was treated, has given me some good tips on staying connected to my neice and helping her to know that she has someone who cares about her. I have started giving her little gifts with notes attached, mailing boxes to her of various items, things like that. When she first moved to my inlaws house, I made her one of those fleece tie blankets and two matching pillows. Haven't heard yet if she likes them or not. Also bought a ton of books because her mother absolutely loved reading and I want my niece to feel that special connection that reading will give her to her mother. I think if she finds her mother anywhere, it will be inside of a book. If that makes sense.
Several of the kids in our family are starting kindergarten this year. My niece and Drew being among them. I had bought my niece two outfits at Wal Mart and gave them to her at Hunter's birthday party. She seemed excited about school. She hugged her new clothes and told me she would take them home and put them in her drawer until school started.
Every once in awhile I go through the clothes that Louisa's grown out of because I know a few little girls who benefit from them, my niece being one. I thought this would be a good time to give her some more starting school clothes. We found tons of pink shirts! So if anyone ever buys Louisa a new shirt, don't buy pink! We've got that color well covered! I think my niece will be excited with all that we dug up for her. I wish I had more pants to give her, though. All of Louisa's too small pants had holes in the knees. Big ones, not just small put-a-patch over them ones.
Then my idea struck me. I got this idea that I wanted to buy my niece some cool, decorated socks. I don't know where the idea came from, but it's one that once I get, I have to buy them because it won't go away. Like, if I don't go buy the socks, I will procrastinate and not get the box of clothes put together and mailed because I know there is something missing from it. Louisa also got the idea of buying her cousin some flavored chap stick. She likes those and would think it's really awesome that Louisa picked something out for her. She looks up to Louisa.
There we are in the girls section of Kohl's department store, looking for cool decorated socks. Not much of a selection, but luckily for us, Drew found some sunglasses for himself on sale! Woo-hoo! Couldn't pass those up! $10 sunglasses for $4! Yup, I know, waste of money. That's just me and my impulsivness. The one that's going to have me in A LOT of trouble when my hubby comes home.
Finally I found some cute socks and lo and behold, they were on sale too! My lucky day. We walked around the store a bit and eventually went up to pay. Louisa had found her chap stick as well, not on sale, though. I felt like something was missing as we checked out. Chap stick, socks.... what was missing? No clue, so we paid and left.
At the car I have the stroller unpacked, and was just about to take Hunter out when Drew says, "Mom, my sunglasses are in my pocket!" Oh, no! That's what I forgot, the sunglasses!
Okay, honestly now, how many of you would go all the way back into the store and pay for the sunglasses? I know it's the proper and "Christian" thing to do, but come on... All the way back into the store? ((sigh)) I was tired, I needed to go home, and it was about to rain any second.
Then Drew says, "Well, I guess we just have to go back in and pay for them!" That settled it. I couldn't say no we won't. I couldn't explain that I was actually just planning on stealing them and going home. We trudged back into the store and God shined down on me as He held off the rain just long enough for me to get the kids into the car and buckled. Then... it poured buckets! Which was an answered prayer to the drought we're in. Apparently God was shining down on someone else, too.

1 comment:

Andrew McAllister said...

Those gifts you provide for that young woman probably mean more than you could possibly know.

Andrew
To Love, Honor and Dismay