Staycation

Mom and Uncle Dad are visiting us from NY, so we've been bopping around doing all sorts of outings. Saturday at the Minnesota History Center, today at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, tomorrow the Minnesota Zoo. These are places we love to visit anyways, but having guests is added motivation.

I need to confess the hardest thing about these visits has been the damn gift shops, with their siren song. I caved yesterday and let the kids pick out little baggies of polished rocks. It was awfully easy to just say "sure!" and hand the nice lady a ten-spot. And when we went to lunch, the kids spent much of their time sorting and naming their rocks. This had the added bonus of allowing the grownups to have a conversation or two and eat our Mock Duck Vermicelli Salads in peace. (Mai Village, Frogtown, St. Paul is fabulous.)

Today the X man didn't last long at the MIA - even with my increasing inventive/desperate games of I-Spy, he was done in a hurry. In the last few years they added a great family room and stocked it with lots of toys so he was happily playing there for a good hour, leaving L and the grandparents a more leisurely approach to the art. They dropped off L, and hit the gift shop, for a full 30 minutes. It was fine - the kids happily occupied, me doing some quilting, Mom scoring a neat pair of crystal and gold earrings. But I remember feeling strangely vindicated...

Shopping is in my blood. Even when I'm studiously NOT shopping, I'm well aware of the possibilities. It's like when you are told to NOT think about a purple spotted elephant, and have to continually rethink it in order to not think about it...

Right now, though? I'm more in the mood to divest... of all sorts of things. I feel the need for a major purge of toys, clothes and tsotchkes. L did bust me with a bag of stuffed animals I was trying to sneak into the Goodwill pile. She promptly dressed me down for my efforts, and announced that those animals (which she hadn't seen in over two months) were, in fact, her FAVORITES. Sigh.

I am holding on until back to school - on multiple levels - and amuse myself with all the projects I'll take on - and the stuff I'll get rid of - without my trusty supervisors, aged 5 and 7. It's good to have a dream or two.