Now, in my recent attempts at saving money, I have restricted myself from Bath & Body Works purchases. They sell perfectly good-smelling lotions and body washes at Target, in the generic brand, which I can purchase with coupons.
Plus I had an adequate stash of previously-purchased Bath & Body Works products in my bathroom, so I wasn't hurting for good smells in my house. However, the scents designed for use in spring are horribly inappropriate for this time of year, and you can't expect me to use a lotion with hints of lilac when I clearly should be using one with hints of evergreen, and Oh for the love of God WHAT KIND OF LIFE IS THIS?
Anyway. The point is, I was perfectly clean and moisturized with my seasonally-inappropriate bath products, and all was well.
Until a little thing called Twisted Peppermint came back to Bath & Body Works.
Twisted Peppermint is the greatest scent ever. Minty and fresh, with just the teeniest amount of sweet, it's pleasantly festive without choking you with the Christmas spirit. And I'm not the only one who likes it. Last year Bath & Body Works sold out all the Twisted Peppermint long before Christmas, in-store and online, because people were buying huge quantities and selling them on eBay. It's like the Cabbage Patch Kid of lotions.
This year I was not going to be left empty- (and dry-) handed. I trotted over to Bath & Body Works while Nathan was at school yesterday. I got to the mall before the stores opened, and I saw Santa being escorted down the elevator by a mall security guard, and seriously I was so excited that I yelled, "It's Santa! Hey Santa!" and he said hi back to me and I teared up a little. (Let me remind you I did not have my kid with me. Christmas Spirit FTW!)
Three games of the hugely addictive cell phone word game Dabble later, the store opened. And soon I was plunged into the most complicated mathematical situation in life--more complicated even than splitting up the restaurant check--trying to maximize my Bath & Body Works coupons. I don't care what level of math you reached in your educational career, you can't possibly wrap your head around the calculations required to outsmart Bath & Body Works at their coupon game. I'm not even sure the people who create the coupon campaigns understand the exact math behind them. I think there's just an earnest Bath & Body Works marketing person in a conference room doing a PowerPoint presentation like, We don't know the exact numbers, but the coupons bring people in the store and we make money, and there's only one slide in the presentation and it looks like this:
Anyway, bottom line, I picked out a bunch of stuff, and I closed my eyes and pointed to one coupon and picked that one to use, and I ended up with some lotions, body washes, a hand sanitizer, a bubble bath, and a hand soap in the following holiday scents: Twisted Peppermint, Vanilla Bean Noel, and Winter Candy Apple. Total expenditure: $28. That's pretty good for 6 items, right? I mean, almost Target prices? Plus the good smells get me in the Christmas spirit, which is, as they say, priceless.
So, after my experiences with not-so-extreme couponing, I made a trip to Costco and then picked Nathan up at school. Upon pickup, the teacher told me that Nathan had been reluctant to play with the other kids at recess time, and that they had tried to encourage him to join the group, but he didn't want to.
Now, this whole loner thing is a new development, at least as far as I'm aware. The first time I heard of this issue was at a recent parent-teacher conference, wherein the teachers had expressed concern about Nathan's reluctance to play with other kids sometimes. I was really surprised that he was having problems socializing, because he always seems to enjoy playing with other kids at the park or the gym daycare or wherever, and in fact he's usually disappointed when there aren't other kids to play with in a particular venue. And when I pick him up, I can't pry him away from two other kids in particular (one of whom is in a different class at preschool).
So I decided not to worry about Nathan's social issues right now, because -- oh, okay, who am I kidding? I worry about everything. But I decided to worry more about Nathan's other issues, namely his recent tendency to talk back and/or not follow directions. And he did get a good report on those behaviors from school yesterday, so I sort of put the whole doesn't play well with others issue out of my mind.
As the rest of the day unfolded, we did our usual things like eating and chores. Then Nathan had a very cold playdate at the park, during which he did play well with others. Next we went to the gym, and it seemed he played well with his friends there, too.
Now, I didn't take a shower immediately after working out, so by the time dinner was over, I was feeling pretty gross. That's when I remembered my new Winter Candy Apple bubble bath! Bill and Nathan were happily playing with Legos together, so I said, "I'm going upstairs to have some me time."
Oh man, you guys, I love that bubble bath. It's so pretty and red and sparkly, and it smells so good.
Following the me time, I gave Nathan a bath, which was much less relaxing than taking a bath myself. As I was drying him off, I talked to him about how his behavior had been pretty good that day, but I asked him why he hadn't wanted to play with other kids at school.
"Nobody wanted to build a fort with me," he said. "So I just played by myself."
"Oh, that's okay," I said. "Sometimes I like to be alone, too."
"Yeah, I just needed some me time," he said.
Fair enough.
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