Why I Am An Awesome Mom...

Not that I'm bragging or anything, BUT...

I took Aubrey to the American Girl store in Dallas for a super fun day of shopping and eating at the American Girl Bistro Restaurant. WITH her doll. WITH her girl cousins. WITH not a whole lot of money left over after the day was finished.

But, it was Oh. So. Fun.

If you recall, I went to the American Girl store in New York a couple years ago and was quite overwhelmed by the sheer number of dolls and outfits and accessories they had on display there. As a child growing up, I longed to own Kirsten and her many adorable clothes and accessories. Her school lunch was something I especially coveted. When I stepped foot into the AG store in New York and saw a dozen Kirstens, in every outfit she owned, with her school lunch, her adorable blue bed, and her St. Lucia wreath, I almost cried. It was quite a sight to behold. At the time, I knew that if Aubrey had been with me, she would have been just as awestruck as I was. I vowed I would take Aubrey to an American Girl store someday.

Alas, Kirsten is now gone from American Girl stores, and has been replaced by a dozen or so other very adorable girls. And although walking into the Dallas store several years later didn't bring a tear to Aubrey's eye, she still reacted in much the same way as I had, which was so fun to watch.

Right outside the store, there they all are.



This is what they did once getting inside: Rush around from one case to the next, gasping and saying things like, "Oh my gosh!" "Girls, look at this!" "Oh, look over there!" as they moved on to the next thing. There were literally dozens and dozens of glass cases with dolls and doll accessories all over the entire bottom floor of this building. Not only that, but they also had all the books, and all the movies. They had everything we've ever seen in any catalog plus more.



After about an hour of circling through the mazes of glass cases, excitement increasing with each one, and Aubrey had seen everything, at least three times, she looked at me and said, "I am SO overwhelmed!" I know how you feel, Aubs, I know how you feel. She had a gift card and didn't know what to spend it on: there were so many wonderful things, how could she possibly choose within her limit? In the end, she chose several very nice items: the School Set (which includes and backpack and adorable little binder, among other things) the Travel Set (which includes a rolling suitcase, a teeny tiny passport, etc) a pair of fancy doll shoes and a American Girl pony. It ended up being exactly the amount she had to spend and so it worked out perfectly.



Now having shopped till we dropped, we headed upstairs to the little restaurant, the American Girl Bistro, for dinner.




We had a reservation and sat right down. The food was very cute and theme-y, and best of all, they had little clip-on seats so your doll could sit next to you.





The dinner was a fixed price and included an individual appetizer and entree. The appetizers were adorable, with fruit in cute cut out shapes and lots and lots of their trademark pink everywhere.




The only bad thing about the restaurant was that we waited for an hour before the food came out! It was a little bit of a let-down, because, we were all so excited to go, and hungry, and having to wait SO. LONG. kind of took the excitement out of it a little. For such a kid-oriented place, to make kids wait that long for food, seemed a little strange. But luckily, the doll hair salon was right next door, as well as more cases of dolls and accessories, so the girls were more than happy to continue browsing around, and also admire dolls getting fancy hairdos until the food came.

One thing that was "I kid you not" awesome, was what we found in the restrooms of American Girl:



A handy dandy hook device on which to hang your doll while you use the facilities. (It even had a little diagram explaining its use in case you walked into the stall and said, "what the...?!" when you saw it.) Okay, it might look a little creepy, and if you don't mind your doll hanging by her armpits watching you do your business, then I'm sure it's fine. At any rate I was amazed. These American Girl people really think of everything.



In the end, we left happier than we had come, which was saying something, because, we were pretty happy when we first arrived.