Error Of Judgement

Today, I made a bad judgement. It was an error on my part and I shouldn’t have been so foolish, but it was in part the result of a decision made weeks ago and by today I was unable to put it off any longer.

I had to Go Shopping – With Purpose, No Clue What To Get & Not A Lot Of Money.

I’m not, perhaps, your average woman. I don’t, particularly, enjoy the whole shopping experience. I’m more of a ‘guy’ type shopper, in that I like to plan in advance what stores I’m going to go into, know in advance what product it is I’m looking to get from that store, and what my alternatives are should that store not have the product I’m looking for, specifically, or whether an alternative substitute could be made. I am not the sort of person who enjoys spending an entire day shopping unless there are very certain circumstances.

Certain circumstances – such as winning the lottery …

In addition to the frustration of not having the faintest idea what I wanted to buy, but with the added pressure of knowing I had to find it today, was enough to drive me crazy. I can’t go shopping tomorrow, I’m in the office, hence out of shopping ability all day, as it means me dropping The Boy off with his grandparents at 8.30, leaving their house at 9 to make it into the office by nine thirty. Usually this is my plan and it tends to run half an hour late. I won’t get time after work because everywhere will be shut by then, and then on Thursday it is one of this weeks special birthdays: My Hubby’s.

The Hubby is in his early thirties, he’s a couple of years older than I am, and the last birthday of his we properly celebrated was the one before I got pregnant, and we had lots of friends to stay and a drunken, middle of the summer BBQ. Then last year, I was heavily pregnant by The Hubby’s birthday – I couldn’t physically fit into my car to drive anywhere, and I was overdue and felt ready to pop, unable to walk for more than five minutes without needing to rest for half an hour! I considered internet shopping, but then had no idea what to get him and left it too late … I felt very guilty, and promised myself that this year, between me and The Boy, we would spoil The Hubby for his birthday.

However, here we are and I don’t have a clue. He’s just spent a fortune buying stuff for DIY from his old job; He downloads books for his mobile phone now so it’s pointless buying him an actual book; Films and series he’s into he’s already got; Clothes seem so boring and unimaginative as a gift, unless it’s something particularly special; He does wear jewellery, but not often, and he’s got loads for if he wanted to wear it anyway so if I’d have found something special I’d have got it … But I didn’t find anything that really had the wow factor. I am such a bad wife! I found him stuff from The Boy, so that’s fine, but from me, I failed miserably.

To top it all off, the weather today. When I got up, it was cool and cloudy outside: As the morning progressed, it rained and I was quite glad, thinking it would leave it nice and cool as the day went on. I showered and dressed, got The Boy washed and dressed (in his Mionappy for Day 2 of our Mionappy Real Nappy Challenge) and we set off.

Already regretting my choice of wearing jeans for the outing, I was also concerned about The Boy, who was wearing joggers and I had no sun cream in the nappy bag as the sun had been firmly behind a cloud when we left so I’d covered them before leaving the house and left it sitting on the kitchen worktop. The Boy has issues with keeping socks and shoes on his feet, so on the whole now I coat them in sun cream and leave them bare if the weather is good enough, as it seems pointless worrying about socks and shoes going missing if they’re not strictly speaking required why bother putting them on in the first place! But it means continual re-application of sun cream to protect the delicate skin.

We flew through the first shop, emerging an impressive forty five minutes later (it’s a big store!) with some booty to show for it. I was happy; it was a good start – it slowly went downhill from there.

It was still, it was hot, it was horrible, close, airless heat, and soon the pair of us were wilting. I ensured The Boy was well protected from the sun with the sun canopy up on the Quinny Zapp and the parasol attached to the chassis but I did feel a bit silly when we were bouncing about on uneven pavements and the parasol was bouncing about too! (It reminds me of those silly head boppers you get) I was glad I had it, especially when I saw some babies in pushchairs obviously getting the full glare of the sun right on them (a couple of kids looked quite flushed) while The Boy was warm he was still happy, chatty, eating his pink wafer biscuit and asking me for a drink regularly. While on this note, I must draw attention to the fact that The Boy, despite being out shopping (which he hates) and being uncomfortably warm, he was quite happily entertained thanks to his Nuby Flip Flop book, which I attach onto the pushchair harness using the plastic ring of the toy to make sure he doesn't loose it. Not only is it fantastic to entertain him in the pushchair, I've also found it fantastic to attach onto the trolley in stores by the velcro tab in an effort to stop him chewing on the trolley metal. I have to be quick to realise what he's doing and jump straight in offering him the book instead, but on the whole he'll go for the book to play with and he always does, it was such a gem of a find that product - I got it in Tesco reduced to £4 and I'd never heard of Nuby at that point, but I thought it looked funky and might help entertain him and I'm a total Nuby convert!

Three hours later, we got home. I was exhausted, hot, thirsty and though fairly pleased with the booty accumulated for The Boy’s birthday which is at the weekend, I was also mildly annoyed that I hadn’t managed to find anything further for The Hubby. Why is it that when you have either no purpose to purchase items, or no money to afford them, you find lots of stuff. When you have a specific purpose, or on the rare occassion you have some money/are willing to stretch to afford and sacrifice something else if necessary, there is nothing to be had. It's the same when shopping. When I specifically need to go shopping for an outfit for a specific occassion, there is never anything I like, never anything in my size and never anything that ticks all the boxes. If I randomly pop into a clothes shop, or even while I'm wandering in the supermarkets not looking for stuff for me, I'll find loads of stuff I could get!

All in all mixed feelings for today and now I’m utterly exhausted, I’ve still got to wash my hair and get everything sorted out for tomorrow! I want to look forward to spending the day with The Hubby and The Boy for The Hubby’s birthday but I feel like I’m really letting him down on the gift front!