Niranjana, Melissa and Andy

Ah, shopping. Such an important task and entertainment in my family. Niranjana is shaping up to be a good shopping partner. Not to jinx anything, but yesterday was a stellar experience.

Late in the afternoon, I gave her the choice of the grocery store or the craft store. She chose Michael's. We talked about how there was a lot of stuff and she needed to be gentle and stick with me. And she did! She even said "excuse me" when she bumped into people. Progress!

We wandered Michael's, which she called a "maze." Apparently the Thanksgiving crafts are sold out or removed by Oct. 31, so we settled on some Christmas crafts and Jasmine stickers, found parts of a birthday gift for a girl who likes Dora, and got out of the store for under $20.

There was a Starbucks nearby and I figured we should stop for a pound of coffee — and a kid cocoa. Niranjana walked in and ordered her cocoa, then opened the straw to a carton of organic vanilla-flavored milk, so we got that too. She chose the only easy chair in the place, sucked down the cocoa, sipped the entire milk (amazing), jammed to the jazz ("what is this music?" she asked, bobbing her head), and didn't run around at all.

So we went to Costco, looking for the vanilla milk. No joy, but we did learn how to find the Costco restroom, got some falafel for Andy, visited the Playskool life-size baby dinosaur (Santa is not bringing this to our house, http://www.hasbro.com/playskool/kota/), and ended up with the magnetic doll set. It has three dolls: one that looks like Niranjana, one like our blond friend and one like our red-headed friend. Santa wasn't fast enough to hide it, but it's getting focused play — it has a soccer outfit in addition to the ballerina outfits, so I'm good with this.

We'll see how the grocery store goes today. A few more years and Niranjana will be ready for outings with the professional shopper: Grandma.