When I was a kid, I always equated August with school shopping. I loved going out with my mom, letting her dress me up like a little mini-Terry, and coming home with bags filled with tissue paper and clothes that would suit my abnormally large rib cage (as my mom always pointed out when we were shopping, setting me up for years of rib cage hate).
She probably didn't like the shopping experience as much as I did. Since there were three of us, it inevitably meant at least three trips for her, plus a lot of running around to get shoes and socks and backpacks and odds and ends before school started.
Now that I have kids, August still means school shopping. Of the point-and-click variety. Over the last few days, Annie and I have sat on the couch with my laptop and gotten her a whole bunch of school clothes (the school has a pretty strict dress code and she has been very worried that her clothes wouldn't be "cute enough" so I've been putting some good effort into finding things that are cute, but won't get her kicked out of school).
The first box, from Lands' End, arrived in the mail today. Out came four pairs of shoes and a couple of shirts. Within seconds, my three big kids were all running around the house in their new sneakers. It was so much easier (and cheaper, I think) than running all over tarnation with four kids in tow. I still have my sanity intact. Over the next few days, we're expecting boxes from LLBean and Old Navy, and voila, three kids will be outfitted for school.
But I always felt closest to my mom when we were out shopping. Me stepping on pins in the dressing room at Lord and Taylor, her searching for Liz Claiborne "mom jeans" in a size to fit a twelve year-old. I feel like I'm missing out with that with my own kids.
Missing out on it enough to actually take them shopping? To a real store? No freaking way.
--originally published 7/30/07
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