Sara has been begging to go to Fred Meyer to buy zhu zhu pets. Ever since she played with them at her cousin Ella’s house, she’s wanted one. Sara’s saved a remarkable amount of allowance. $55. She get $2 a week. You do the math. And she’s 6 years old. So, I changed my normal schedule so we’d do grocery shopping during the weekend when she was home from school.
I had wanted Sara to forget zhu zhu pets. I’m not sure why have conflicted feelings about the things. In general, I’ve had control over my kids toy buying. There’s a couple of things that creep in that are not my favorite toys. But most toys are Mom approved. I intentionally avoid big box toy stores. We got to Top Ten Toys and avoid Toys R Us. I don’t like the aisles of barbies and bratz dolls. My girls have a few Barbies from my childhood but don’t seem to interested. We avoid commercial TV as much as possible. All that said, I didn’t know why I was reluctant to acquire zhu zhu pets. They seem innocent enough. I think mostly they’re brand name and popular right now.
Then Sara brought them home and I figured it out. There’s no off button. There’s no way to turn them off. They make cute little noises. Unfortunately, the noises are annoying when my other kid is napping.
I think that’s a minor issue. The things seem really cute. They’re essentially motorized hamsters. Much easier than having the real thing. I think I will be a fan. The girls spent most of the afternoon playing with them.
At the store, I tried to teach Sara about the concept of a “deal”. If you buy a set, you get 3 zhu zhu pets for $20, but an individual on costs $10. I’m not sure she got the concept, but she bought the set.
Today was errand day. We got top pot donuts for breakfast, got bang cuts at Supercuts, and got challah bread from Great Harvest. The girls got balloons and lollipops from TJs. They got to watch movies at Freddies. Tough day.
It was also a date night. We tried Shikus after a year. We arrived for happy hour and got most things off that menu. Edamame, california rolls, chefs sashimi special, spare ribs, and salmon croquettes. The best item was brie wrapped in a shiso leaf wrapped in a won ton wrapper, deep fried and served with strawberry kiwi. Who thought of that combo? Whoever did should be given a raise. It was awesome. The extraordinary desert chef evidently left. No green tea desert with white chocolate ganache. We suffered along with tempura fried green tea ice cream.
Then we came home and went thru over a year’s worth of art work from the kids. Not a thrilling task. Normally it takes me a day. I took two of us about 2 hrs. All our art supplies have been in disarray since the painting in Feb. We hadn’t unpacked all the art supplies. They were sitting in the basement. With visitors coming next week, it got put on the priority list. It’s fun to see the progression. Sara has fine tuned her horses over the past year. They are both creative, imaginative kids that like to create things.
As our encore, we watched the Hurt Locker. Good film. My favorite part is filmed in a grocery store. Certainly an adrenaline buzz. Thus the late night writing.
