Shopping with Daughters

Since it was Spring Break, I decided to take the girls shopping with me. The mission: to buy our Butterfly an Easter/birthday dress for under $20. With the boys hypnotized by Mario Galaxy at Nathaniel's house, off went the girls to do girl stuff. I hadn't taken Butterfly clothes shopping before and as soon as I saw her face light up in the size 6x-12 section of Kolh's I knew it was going to be tricky. She LOVED everything she tried on and wanted to buy them all; which one might think would make the task easy. No. Narrowing it down to one and one only! It's such an important decision. The fact that only 2 out of 10 spring dresses have sleeves at least narrows it down a little. Her favorite was a big girl looking, non-pastel, black/white/dark pink silky-feely one with a half-price tag of $25. A little over budget so let's keep looking.

Dutch Baby got in and out of the carseat at least 10 times that day. Mervins next: I liked one there but Butterfly said too crispy. Target: too fluffy and bouncy. Old Navy: too expensive. And then finally, 3 hours later, back to Kohl's for that original love with the right texture but wrong price tag. At that point I wouldn't have cared if it was full price. I justified that at least it was on sale. Butterfly was thrilled and smiled all the way home.

I remember exasperating my mother in our childhood shopping quests. Why was I surprised to find it just as difficult shopping with my own daughter? And she's not even eight yet. We've got a decade of Easters ahead of us. Good thing it's just once a year.

Lucky for me Dutch Baby was all set with a hand-me-down. The fate of the younger sister.