A mother, a son, and the Mall

I enjoy spending time with my son, just having fun. That doesn't happen often these days. Long gone are elementary homeschool days of hiking through trails looking for rocks, or rare arrowheads, or colored leaves to place their stems in glycerin and send to our friend who lives in the desert, picnics, visits to the zoo for fun...the life of moms and little boys.

Now my sons days are not only filled with our schoolwork but college courses, his work at the bookstore, evenings spent with friends, the guy's Bible study, fencing, and computer games.

Today, however, was a lot like old times. Instead of heading out together on trails, he asked me to help him as he fought through something much worse than forest areas...he needed help at... the Mall. He despises the Mall and goes there as little as possible.

He needed to purchase a few items of clothing as well as gifts for two girls-who-are-just-friends. We set out late morning and very definitely had God's blessings on us. We quickly found everything he needed, most at least fifty percent off original price. I don't shop much anymore but I still remember where to get the best clearance buys and what stores sells the kind of items he was looking for.

He shops like I do. We know where we are going, we see what we like, it's on sale, we make the purchase. My husband has to do cost comparisons and visit at least a dozen stores while usually going back to his first stop.

It was fun shopping for jewelry for the two girls, he had no clue what would be a good gift or what would be considered appropriate. Because of fifty percent off prices and the time we took to look for coupons in the paper (an extra 15% off), we were able to get both girls lovely sterling silver jewelry on a high school guy's salary.

He rewarded my efforts with a late lunch at our favorite cafeteria, the same one that brings back so many memories of my mother, my daughter as a toddler being given red Jell-O by a doting grandmother, family get-togethers...fun times. This lunch will be added to that album of memories as we mentally went back over all our "great buys" and wondered what the girls would think of their belated Christmas gifts.

He doesn't have many friends who have to purchase their own shoes, jackets, jeans, and other clothes. He depends on his part-time job, his sister's great birthday and Christmas gifts, and his brother-in-law's cast offs (they have the same taste in clothing). Not to mention, he is as good as me at finding Goodwill goodies. (We were looking at a beautiful shirt today and both said...at about the same moment...that this is the kind of shirt we could easily find at Goodwill!)

We arrived home in time for him to change into his new clothes and leave to meet his friends for an all night computer game party. Sigh....he's not ten, anymore. However, I will continue to hold fast the fun we have on days like this because I know how fast time does go by. I have no small children in my daily life but I enjoy the teenager!