With four more shopping days left, businesses are counting on customers like Brenda Calleja, a 20-year-old student at LaGuardia Community College who plans to spend $100 to $200 on the kind of white gold jewelry her mother prefers.

"My mother's really special. I want the prefect gift. I don't care how much it is," said Calleja, who was browsing rings at Macy's.

Shoppers will spend an average of $98.64 for the important women in their lives this year, ringing up a total of some $10.43 billion, according to a National Retail Federation survey. That's up from $62.20 in 2001 and a tad more than last year.

Retailers have generally been recovering from a drop-off in business since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But average spending for Mother's Day jumped 36% in the first year after that.

"After a national tragedy do people spend less on their family? Consumers may put off purchases for themselves and for their businesses, but they are not going to put off purchases for their moms," said National Retail Federation spokeswoman Ellen Tolley.

This year, in an escape from a long winter, a variety of merchandise is coaxing shoppers to spend plenty, even before a flurry of sales and promotions hits full force later this week.

"What we noticed in the last couple of months, not just for Mother's Day, is that people are buying things at full price. They see it, they want it, they buy it so they can just get it," said Elina Kazan, spokeswoman at Macy's Northeast.

"Handbags are hotter than hot. What people are reacting to is the newness in the stores," Kazan said.

Other hot items include trendy jewelry like color-banded watches, chandelier earrings, pearls, cocktail rings, or bracelets with feminine accents. Fragrances and cosmetic kits are also faithful standbys, Kazan said.

At Ann Taylor and its lower-priced Loft stores, the best-selling Mother's Day items are scarves, handbags and twin sets in bright colors like fuchsia, turquoise and lime green, said spokeswoman Tara Madden.

For some businesses, this year is an opportunity to roll out new promotions. The cosmetic emporium Sephora is promoting Mother's Day separately for the first time. A flier was mailed in mid-April featuring top sellers like the lipstick set Le Quartet de Chanel and the anti-aging products in the Dr. Perricone Starter Set.

"We wanted to test the potential of Mother's Day," said Allison Slater, Sephora's head of retail marketing.

Online retailers are also debuting new services, like gift certificates for online directory www.sittercity.com, which matches parents to babysitters, or promoting shopping concierge sites like www.shefinds.com.

And there's always the option of nothing at all.

"I can never shop for Mother's Day. I'd be a dead woman," said Abigail Lewis, a graduate student from Brooklyn. "My mother hates it. She says 'Every day should be Mother's Day.' "