Trippin'

Miss 13 and I are going to take a trip. For her 8th grade "graduation" she gets to take a trip with just Mom. Mr 17 and his dad got to head to Kansas City for a Nascar race for his trip. They loved it. Miss 13's wishes weren't quite as lofty. She only wished to head off about 300 miles to the hometown of her best friend from elementary school to see him and do some shopping. I think, other than a few times to Grandma and Grandpa's house before Miss 9 was born, this will be the first trip we have taken alone together. Strangely enough, in spite of all her recent emotional, irrational and annoyingly scathing outbursts, I am looking forward to spending some time with just her. Secretly I am hoping to forge a bit more of a bond. We are actually quite close, especially if no one else is around. When others are around she tends to behave as though I'm a bit of a dolt. Hopefully we'll relax and have fun. Mostly we are nasty, awful people and we get a kick out of poking fun at the way we see some people behave, so if nothing else, people watching will be on our list. I know she is hoping for some serious clothes shopping as well. There's where our biggest bond lies: she LOVES to shop for clothes and I LOVE to shop for shoes. Luckily, we wear the same size shoe, so she gets to share. Unfortunately, I am no longer a size 1 or a size small, so we don't get to share the clothes. We leave Wednesday. I can't wait!