IT'S OFFICIAL, GAGA IS A PUSHOVER

Due to circumstances beyond my control (which have turned out to have a bit of silver lining), I am getting to spend a lot more time with Charley lately. Twice in the past week, I've taken her for the day to visit, run errands, go shopping & have lunch. She even told Daddy to show me how to fasten the car seat straps "because Gaga has trouble with it". She's right, Gaga does have trouble with it sometimes, but I'm improving.

It seems that we really enjoy our time together & Charley has figured out that Gaga is a total pushover when it comes to buying her stuff. When we did my dad's shopping together last week I bought her a few little things - a tiny doll with long blue hair, some pom-poms (on the clearance table) that fell apart two days later & a little plastic Olaf whose head opens up to reveal a small sucker. I've spent days looking for more little suckers to refill it - finally found them so now she is good to go. And, just a side note, that kid can spot Frozen stuff from way across the store!

I've been on a mission to make a CD to play in my car with Charley's favorite songs. Her three biggies are "All About That Bass", "Shake It Off" & "Let It Go". I'd downloaded "Let It Go" to my iPod last year to learn the words. But it seems that iPods are now technological dinosaurs & downloading one song without signing up for a continual service is not easy. Everything now involves the "Music Cloud" & if you are older than 16, you have no idea what or where it is. Plus I hadn't used my iTunes account since I bought my new computer. I spent hours the other night & I'm not real sure how I did it, but I finally had a CD with those three songs & several other catchy girl songs on it! Hooray, Gaga!

Yesterday I took her for the day & put the CD on as soon as we got in the car. That little girl knows every word to those three songs & she just belts them out as she sings along! Her enthusiasm really is contagious. We played them at least 5 or 6 times in our travels. I have to figure out a way to get a video of her singing along.

One of our stops was at Kohl's where I had a $5 off reward & a 30% discount coupon. My intention was to let her pick a couple of long tops that she likes & maybe a pair of leggings. When she spotted the fancy Disney dresses, all bets were off. Please, please, please, Gaga! She HAD to have one! Gaga did the math - $35 originally, on sale for $21, less $5, then 30% off made it $11.20 - how could I deny her a beautiful dress that she loved?

The blue Cinderella one looked lovely but it was a size too large & there weren't any smaller ones. She also thought the purple Sofia one was gorgeous. We went to the fitting room & tried them both on. The Cinderella one was indeed too big & didn't fit right, but the Sofia one was beautiful. We both liked it best so I said, "Okay, Gaga will buy it for you." Being a pushover has the most incredible rewards when you see the pure joy in an almost four year old's eyes!

As we walked to the register in the front of the store carrying her Sofia dress, the loudspeaker began playing "Shake It Off". Charley started singing along with Taylor Swift & I joined her:

"The players gonna play, play, play, play, play

And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate

I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake

I shake it off, I shake it off"

We got several smiles from other shoppers as we walked hand in hand down the aisle singing & dancing away. Oh, did I mention we were wearing our matching giant spider glow-in-the-dark necklaces that Gaga bought, too?