Lexi turned twelve last week, and to mark the occasion we made a mother/daughter trip to the mall where I bought her make-up and a push-up bra. No, I didn’t really buy her a push-up bra. That would have been ridiculous since everyone knows you don’t buy your daughter a push-up bra until her thirteenth birthday!

However, I did buy her make-up, and nail polish, and other fun, sparkly stuff that’s sure to send the message: You’re going to have to spend a whole lotta’ money to feel good about yourself from this day on. Happy birthday young woman; now suck in your tummy.

To get things started we stuffed our bellies full at Panera Bread with inappropriate amounts of bread. Have you been to Panera? It’s that restaurant where you’re given the choice of a side of chips, fruit or a slice of bread with your sandwich. I mean, who was behind this genius? A sandwich with a side of bread…brilliant! And if you still feel like you’ve been shorted on the carbohydrates, they’ve got someone going from table to table offering free samples of bread. There we sat, with our sandwiches, a side of bread and a sample of bread.

Once we were fully carbo-loaded, we stopped into a few stores to warm-up and stretch our shopping muscles for the main event: the Lush counter at Macy’s. Lexi had been preparing for this shopping trip to Lush for weeks. She’d spent afternoons hunched over her laptop, creating Excel spread sheets listing Bubble Bombs, and Shower Jellies, in descending order of birthday gift importance.

But first...

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