She came, she shopped, she is now home for a nap! I have a love-hate relationship with Black Friday. Nothing truly thrills me more than to get a good bargain shopping. I love to scope out the best deals around. So, when those sale fliers show up in the newspaper, and the ads start filtering in on the internet, Black Friday is hard to resist.

But I’ve had my share of Black Friday snafus, such as two years ago when Super Dad and I arose at the crack of dawn to go buy a trampoline for LuLu. We arrived at the parking lot at 5:15 am and there was already a line. We had to wedge our way through the crowd, clear to the far back corner of the store where the sporting goods section was. The trampolines were in the aisle right in front of the growing line of people trying to put stuff on layaway. And there was not way to hoist these big heavy things into a regular shopping cart, so Super Dad went in search of some assistance and a flatbed dolly. I stayed to fend off the competition on our prize. It was rough on both of us, fighting the crowd and actually finding a sales clerk at a large discount store on Black Friday. Over an hour later, we left the store victorious…and headed home to take a nap.

Fast forward to Christmas Eve, when Super Dad and my brother-in-law creeped down to the garage to start assembling said trampoline, only to discover that it did not have any springs! Well, Santa, not being one to disappoint, make a quick sled run over to the nearest sporting goods store and bought one with springs for – you guessed it – full price!

But today, unlike that year, I soloed on the shopping spree. I had a plan, and was armed with my sales fliers and notes for six stores. I hit the first one at 6:05 am. I found everything on my list. I hit the second one at 6:50 am, and found everything on my list, plus returned something else. Then, I managed to navigate through the other stores and back home before 9:00 am, meeting success along each turn. I actually got the last item of two different things in two different stores and even had a coupon for one gift in addition to its early bird price! Yes, I am really in my bargain-shopping element.

I have no idea what this entry has to do with adopting special needs kids…except…I have admitted that parenting challenging children has meant giving up much of my planning and Type A personality tendencies. I go into each day not sure of what will happen next and have so totally learned to “go with the flow”. While I made these shopping plans yesterday, I had already resolved myself to not getting everything I planned for, or even coming home empty-handed. So the success is a bit overwhelming. And, I’ll admit it…it feels really nice for a day to go as planned!

Now, time for that nap…

Photo Credit