This Sunday past, I spent the day with Eleanor. I took her on a shopping trip for new clothes in Buffalo, to dinner, and to Zoomagination (which I think should be called izoomination, since it’s an Illumination event BUT NO ONE ASKED ME). On the ride up, I was driving and she was reading and DJing, and out of the blue I said, “hey, wanna get your ears pierced today?” Sometimes, I ask her things, take her temperature on activities (“would you go to a Vance Joy concert?” etc) and she surprised me by saying, “sure!” Like, enthusiastic and everything!

She usually hates shopping for clothes, and yeah, it’s the worst. But the way she handles this traditionally is to say “yes I like that” to the first few things she sees, and then we’re done, and she never wears any of it. Which is maddening yet effective at minimizing timespent. This time, with a wide selection of stores to choose from, she actually had opinions! She didn’t care for Urban Outfitters, she did like some of the sweaters in Anthropologie, but haha, could you imagine, she’s the messiest eater in the world. She had no interest in stepping into either Zara or H&M. Then she saw Loft, and beelined in. Color me surprised. But she proceeded to pull like 8 things that were so Eleanor – she really found her pieces in this grown-ups store. We didn’t get them all (the sailor pants, while adorable, were still way, way too long, for example), but the ones she got seem really versatile. She got hot pink jeans, navy blue paper-bag waist trousers, a coral cardigan, a pink/caramel/white striped long-sleeved sweater, a sleeveless sweater vest, and two pairs of shorts (hot pink and pale orange paisley). Since these were a little bit upscale, we then went to Old Navy to fill out her fall school wardrobe with some basics. She got 3 boxy t-shirts in different solid colors, a long pair of jorts (jorts!), an anorak, a pair of khaki shorts, and 12 pairs of socks (bogo, ya know). Combined with her current pairs of jeans, t’s, and pullovers, this will carry her through until she inevitably outgrows it all.

We stopped at a piercing pagoda and she picked out earrings she liked and we got her ears pierced! As she was sitting in the chair, the lady was like, “you’re certainly being brave” and Ele said straight-faced, “beauty is pain, let’s do this.” Which is pretty metal.

We also picked out two pairs of shoes for her (rainbow crocs and some platform nikes). She loves sushi, and we were already at the mall, so we took all these bags to the car, and came back inside to go to P.F. Chang’s. We split edamame, shrimp pad thai, a california roll, and an absolute unit of a piece of chocolate cake. We didn’t make a dent in the cake, actually. It was huge, name of The Great Wall, as it turns out.

After we wrapped dinner, we drove the 15 min or so over to the zoo, and got a great parking spot (you can tell you’re getting old when you’re like “yeah people will care if we got a good spot.”). We were about 10 minutes early, so we got our layers ready (she pulled out her coral cardigan to wear) and got in line. Last year when we went to izoomination, Eleanor was at camp, so she missed it. This year, she got to experience it all, with no distractions. I’m sure she would have appreciated having Henry there, but I really liked having her all to myself. Also, I realized she walks really, really fast. And she talks the entire time, so I would be juddering along 20 feet back only catching snatches of what she was saying as it got fainter and fainter. We surpassed 10,000 steps pretty easily.

She wanted to stage a fight with the giant octopus because, “octopus wants to fight.” The giant heart was a heart monitor, and we had fun with it – Eleanor would put her hands on the poles and get a baseline heartbeat, and then I’d say “we can buy books!” and her heartbeat would speed up. There was also this cultural show which was pretty interesting. We saw a Chinese lion made up of two men, and then there were three dancers/acrobats who demonstrated various skills – the one I can remember the name of was called water meter (?), which involved not spilling any water out of two bowls that were connected by a long string/rope. Another skill was playing with this bamboo toy (you’ve definitely seen it, but I don’t know what it’s called – it’s kind of yo-yo shaped, but much bigger and the string isn’t attached to it), and another was a round fan dance. The acrobats later did this demonstration of balancing a vase of flowers on a thin rod that was alternately balanced on the acrobat’s teeth or forehead. It was really impressive and Eleanor was both not shy about clapping and was also good at identifying what she particularly thought was well done. Zoomagination usually has a strong Chinese cultural vein, and I think it’s put on in collaboration with an organization that promotes Chinese culture in America, but I’m not sure about that. This year there was a magnificent giant pagoda with two red gates, and last year there were all the animals of the Chinese zodiac.

And then it was time to drive home. It was pretty late, but we had a really good time together. And when we got home, Eleanor swore me to silence about her earrings until she could reveal it in her own time (about 10 minutes later, to Henry directly). Bob and Henry were dutifully impressed with her earrings. I’m so glad I got to spend so much time with just the two of us, it was the BEST day ever. I love her so much.