Who Are These People?

I am trying so hard to be a good mother. I'm even planning ahead, which is so unlike me. And still I am thwarted.

The girls are dying to go to American Girl Place. And I'm game. We'll go once, we'll take Aunt M and Bitty Baby and Clarissa, we'll have tea, they will each be allowed to buy one thing with my money and anything they can afford with their money (put that wallet away, Aunt M), and that will be the end of it (luckily I have reasonable children that way).

But it seems to be impossible. Last summer I called for reservations at the Cafe maybe ten days in advance and it was high summer and they were booked. Fine. But I just called for President's Day weekend, more than a month away, and they are fully booked for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday!

Who are these alpha moms planning their lives so far ahead?! Where did I go wrong?!

[I once had a great rant about why I preferred Mary-Kate and Ashley to American Girl--because the commercialism was blatant, not hidden beneath a veneer of history, and because their dolls were cheap and available to everyone at Wal-Mart--but then whichever one it was went and got all anorexic on us and it was no longer a tenable argument.]