A couple Sundays ago, I took my niece Payton shopping at Citrus Park mall for her 5th birthday, figuring she was finally big enough to go shopping with her favorite Aunt Mimi (no one in my family calls me Emily), plus I need a few items for myself. I have a lovely beach vacation coming up next month and wanted to try on some bathing suits, maybe pick up a glamorous Joan Collins-style caftan or an obnoxiously oversized beach hat.

As a naive non-parent, I grossly underestimated how tough it would be to do actual grown-up lady shopping with a small child. Don't get me wrong. It was crazy fun seeing the world through a 5-year-old's eyes as she tried to decide between a package of erasers that looked food, a gummy pizza or a Hello Kitty makeup kit. (I bought her all three). She wanted to swing by the iPhone accessory kiosk so she could decide which sparkly iPhone cover she will buy one day when she's big enough for an iPhone. We stopped and got a cherry Icee and one of those 8,000-calorie M&M cookie sandwiches with the frosting in the middle, most of which I ate. I took her on the carousel, and of course, she wanted to go on the spinning teacups and spin as fast as we could, and yes, I did almost throw up.

I almost forgot about my beachwear plans until we walked past Express and I saw the cutest shorts rompers being elegantly modeled by some mannequins. I grabbed Payton's hand and dragged her into the store and started looking at tags to see if they had a coral-colored halter neck romper in a medium. That is, until I glanced over and saw my niece had opened her new Hello Kitty pink body glitter and was leaving a long trail of it on the floor. A nice Express clerk walked over to greet us and her warm smile turned to horror as she noticed my glitter-covered sidekick scrunching a handful of romper fabric in her sticky little paw. I quickly helped Payton put the lid back on the body glitter and we scurried out of the store. On the way home, my niece suggested we go shopping in New York City. True story.

Anyway, now I have to go back to the mall alone to appease my craving for summer beachwear, which is just as well, because Express has some awesome sales going on right now. Those rompers I spoke of are only $30, and they have an amazing array of shorts that are buy one pair, get 50 percent off the second. They're also knocking 40 percent off some seriously cute bathing suits, which I dread trying on, but it has to be done.

Thank you, Express, for this well-timed summer shorts sale, and I'm sorry for the glitter on the floor.

Deal Diva Emily

Photos: Express.com, Android camera snapshot of the future Glitter Queen of New York City