Phew.

I'm almost as tired today as I was from working an 18 hour day running the festival. Why? Form shopping for 4 hours with a 2 year old. Wow, that's a lot of work. And I wasn't even alone. My poor sister.

I met her at the mall at noon, as we both had stuff to do. I needed, mostly, to pay my enormous cell phone bill ($300, good god) and pay my Bay bill. My sis needed to buy new shoes for herself and the nephew, and some new pants for the nephew (he got the cuttest pair of purple over-alls). He seems to be hitting a big growing spurt. My dad and his wife were around for the first little while, too. Four adults, one two-year old, and we were all run ragged.

I got a new little black purse out of the deal, picked out for me by the baby and paid for by the step-mother. I gotta say, for a 2 year old boy, he has good taste. He picked it off a low shelf and brought it over to me, shoved it into my hands and said "Jo". I said "Should Auntie Jo buy this?" and he replied "Yeh". Then he proceeded to carry it around the store, slung over his shoulder, looking all proud of himself. He was so cute, the step-mom just had to buy it for me, so he could keep carrying it.

I also picked up a cute pair of brown tweed shoes on really big sale, for $17, a new free Mac lipstick (3-D) for turning in some old make-up containers (gotta love the recycle program) and the DVD set of LOST, which I never managed to catch when it was on. Plus a coupls of fancy food items from Williams Sonoma for my Dad, who's 70th birthday is tomorrow. I can't belive he's turning 70.

Brodie picked out a big purple bus (the one from Harry Potter) for himself, and a DVD, and I couldn't resist buying them for him, indulgent Aunt that I am. He's just learned to say "Help" and he kept shouting it in the aisles in Zellers and I was afraid someone was going to think I was kidnapping the poor child, instead of buying him toys because I like to spoil him. Rotten monkey.

Anyhow, it took a long time to accomplish our simple tasks, as we had to keep stopping so he could play with his bus on the floor of the mall, and letting him walk by himself, which is pretty damned slow, and letting him climb up on things, and crawl under things, and be lifted up to look at things. Life is just one big adventure when you're 2.

Now I think I have to lie down. I didn't even make it to the grocery store, so I have no idea what the hell we're going to have for dinner. I've promised to babysit several days this month while my Dad and step-mom are in Europe, so I guess I better get into better baby-minding shape.