Shopping Day

I went on two different rounds of back-to-school shopping today. Two kids in the morning and the other two kids in the afternoon. We covered the basics: shoes, haircut, new shirts for the first day, lunch box for a couple of them, water bottle for one, socks, underwear, and school supplies. Mission accomplished. And it wasn't horrible. I think the key was dividing it up and not taking everyone at once. It made for less meltdowns, theirs and mine. And here's a few insights that I came away with:

To PK: I'm glad that we found the perfect pair of board shorts. And don't worry, I'll stop calling them swim suits. And thanks for chatting with me. Now I know that you think that "precooked bacon is pretty much the greatest invention ever." I like it, too.

To PC: Yes, it was raining crazy hard when we were inside Target. And you're right, if something happened because of the storm and we were stuck inside Target we could survive for at least a year. But you're also right, Costco would be another good place to be stuck in.

To Miss A: Thanks for pointing out that Target would be a better place to be stuck in because there is bedroom stuff and blankets and if the air conditioning went off we would need lots of blankets. Ok, so maybe not in the summer, but we would have lots of pretty bedroom stuff to lay on, and, you're right, we could try on clothes all day long.

To Mr. E: Thanks for wanting to go up the escalator because even though we didn't need anything on the second floor, I felt like a really good mom when I said, Ok, lets just ride the escalator up and then back down. But then I felt like a crummy mom when I realized you didn't know that it was called an escalator and you're almost six years old. So let's plan some more trips there to take another ride, ok? And did you know it was a little sad for me when you wanted to try on a shirt and we were next to the men's fitting room and when I said that I couldn't go in there you said that it was ok, that I could just stand right at the entrance and you could go in and try on your shirt all by yourself? And then you did. And I was a little sad because your brothers and your sister all tried on clothes today and nobody wanted me to go into the fitting rooms with any of them. It's a funny thing to be a little sad about, but moms get a little sad about plenty of funny little things.