Imperfect Genius

I went shopping for the kids’ winter clothes today. Even if it wasn’t getting to be cold weather, they really needed some new threads. Case in point: when we were getting ready my daughter had to try on three different pairs of pants before she finally found some that didn’t end just above her ankles. The kids have been growing like bamboo on fertilizer.

I remember the days when shopping was fun. I remember when motherhood was but a faint blip on the radar. Those were the days of browsing slowly through racks of pretty things, back when I lacked fear of white clothing and could contain all my essentials in an itty bitty handbag.

In those days no one gave me sideways looks of pity and concern as they carefully avoided coming within arm’s reach of my very civilized, exceedingly well-behaved, polite children. Back then I didn’t have to tell my son twenty-six times to please, please, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT’S SACRED, put down the pink fuzzy slippers. I didn’t have to call out my daughter’s name in barely-suppressed terror each she disappeared in the two seconds in took me to look down at a price tag.

Ah, the joys of shopping with kids. I just want to say that I really, really, really understand why they make leashes for kids.

Old Navy was having a sale today. Okay, they’re always have a sale. But today was an exceptionally good one on children’s clothing. And everyone within fifty miles had zeroed in on it. It looked like the type of madness usually witnessed on that Holy Day of shopping - the day after Thanksgiving, when people wake up at 4am to stand in line outside for hours, waiting to make the mad dash to get their hands on a $50 tv.

The store was crowded with frenzied shoppers. Clothing was everywhere but on the racks. Those cute display tables of t-shirts? Demolished. Women were grabbing piles of shirts and heaping them into their carts and then sorting through them as fast as possible. One lady, who was rocking a crying infant while simultaneously trying to soothe a fussy toddler, gave me a weak smile when my son burst into tears because I wasn’t trekking back to the car to retrieve his videogame. “I swear moms should be paid to shop,” she said. Amen.

I left exhausted, thirsty, and in need of a back massage. I believe I had a small nervous breakdown at some point. The kids were shell shocked. But we were alive, with limbs intact, and only slightly bruised. And we got the job done.

Scorecard: $500 worth of winter clothing for $90. A hard-earned victory.

Favorite find: my daughter’s new pair of cute black boots, stolen purchased for three dollars.