Shopping with the Girls

We took the girls clothes shopping today. We had two gift certificates for Sears from my sister's mother-in-law. She has been really terrific to our kids, considering that she's so loosely related to them that there isn't even a word for the relationship. What is she, their great-aunt-in-law?

Anyway, we had to drive a little bit to get to the nearest Sears, which meant that we really wanted to use up the gift certificates in one try. Which was a study in contrasts.

The first Little Jogger doesn't like to shop, and doesn't really care about clothes. If she's not naked, she's fine. So she just wanted to get it over with. She got there and grabbed a pack of socks. "OK, I'm done, let's go." Her mother pointed out that that only used up $6 of the $25 she had to spend. So she went and grabbed three more packs. (She's good at math.) Eventually we got her to choose a few nice things.

The oldest and newest Little Jogger does like to shop and does care for clothes. Actually, she cares for just about anything. She'd happily buy anything that caught her eye, whether it fit or not. So our problem with her was trying to get her to narrow things down. She picked out a skirt and some Capris and three tops. OK, well, you have to put some things back. You can have the skirt and the Capris, or you can have one of them and two of the tops. She fussed and pouted, but hey, she has to make choices, right? It was a good lesson.

Except that it didn't quite work out. The stuff we got was all on clearance, and was actually cheaper than the lowest marked price. (I think it was 40% more off.) Oops. So we went back and grabbed the three tops. But that wasn't enough. So we went and grabbed a few more things. Great lesson in frugality for the kids.

Anyway, we survived, and we got some nice clothes. Thank you, Isabell!