Bah Humbug!

My mom and I went to Toys R Us today Christmas shopping. I am NOT a huge TRU fan at any time during the year, but at Christmas its a special kind of hell. Especially if you're an extremely wide load/pregnant and trying to push a shopping cart around. The stores near us are usually dirty and are arranged really stupidly. They have aisles that intersect at all sorts of weird angles and there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to their store layout. But anyway . . .

After a lot of research online I had finally figured out which play kitchen I wanted to get for Alyssa and according to the Little Tikes and TRU website, TRU kept it in stock. I really wanted to go pick it up at a time when Alyssa wasn't with me so that it would be a total surprise on Christmas morning, so I thought this afternoon while she was napping would be the perfect opportunity. I also wanted to pick up a gift for her secret santa exchange on one of my mom's boards. The mom of the girl that we're buying a gift for is VERY particular about what she wants/buys for herself, so I can only assume that she's that way with her kids, too. She's constantly talking about all the things she has to return/exchange after holidays and birthdays, so I'm a little stressed about finding the perfect gift. Another mom on the board posted a link to a doll set a few months ago and I remember the "exchange" mom really liking it, so I was going to pick up one for the exchange and one for Alyssa's stocking. Damned if I could find those dolls anywhere in the store. Damned if I could find the kitchen I wanted. And damned if I could find a simple stuffed cookie monster. I hate that we fought the crowds (even armed with some great $5 off coupons!) and came home completely empty handed. OH! And I wanted a simple pair of dress up shoes for Alyssa; the plastic princess kind . . . damned if I could find those either!

I suggested to my mom that we look for a keyboard/piano for them to give Alyssa for Christmas as I thought that was something that she would really enjoy. Damned if the only one they had in the whole place (that didn't have a 10 years and older age suggestion) was Barbie. Not that that's really BAD, but I was hoping to find something a little more basic and gender neutral. But Bun is going to have to play with a pink and lavender shopping cart one day, so why not a pink Barbie piano. Maybe we should have gotten him the matching Barbie guitar . . . that would have been manly, right?

I think the kitchen that I spent so much time picking out is being discontinued because its no longer on Little Tikes website, so I did find one that I liked pretty much the same. I'm starting to feel so burnt out that I just want to get her one and get it over with. Mom and I are going shopping again on Tuesday and I hope we have better luck then because I'm in a seriously pissy mood after TRU today. Although dinner, complete with onion rings, at Red Robin helped a bit. And there's Alyssa's visit to Santa to look forward to on Tuesday. :)