Denis told me about a new shopping center going up near our house and we drove by it on the way home from church last night. It looks like it’s trying to be a new-urban shopping center with walkways leading from store to store – like it’s a little town in and of itself (my family knows what I’m talking about, if nothing else).
They have a lot of construction going on – I’d say the shopping center is only a third completed. But they have Home Depot, SuperTarget, Old Navy, PetSmart, Marshall’s, Best Buy, OfficeMax and a plethora of small shops that haven’t even moved in yet due to ongoing construction.
After CootieBoy went down for a nap I took CootieGirl out to SuperTarget to get a few winter sweaters. We walked around the store for a long time before heading over to PetSmart just to look at the animals. She saw the fish, lizards, hamsters, birds, kittens up for adoption, dogs that owners brought to the store – once she had seen all the animals I told her it was time to go.
“No! I need to see more animals!” she whined.
“You’ve seen them all, CootieGirl. There aren’t anymore to see.”
Just then a woman sidled up to me with a smile. She didn’t say anything, but waited for me to notice that she had a tiny pig tucked into the bib of her overalls. “CootieGirl!” I gasped. “Look at this!”
The woman kneeled down and CootieGirl was enraptured just like Fern in “Charlotte’s Web”. She pet the pig for a few minutes as we ooohed and aahed over how cute it was. Then CootieGirl announced that she was ready to go home and tell Daddy about the pig she saw.