How They Shopped

We don't have a back-to-school shopping routine in our family. Sometimes I wonder if we should develop one. Am I supposed to have rules, guidelines, and traditions for back-to-school shopping? Cause I just kind of wing it every year. 

I've done back-to-school shopping a lot of different ways. I've done the "one outfit" thing because there have been times when my kids haven't needed anything, so I've just allowed them something for the first day of school. A few times, my mom has taken them shopping. One year I purchased all second-hand clothes (my kids were none the wiser). I've done lots of online shopping wherein my kids don't even participate. I just go, "Hey, there's a package on the porch. It's your school clothes." No one has ever complained. 

This year I decided to use back-to-school shopping as a way to spend one-on-one time with my kids. I took each of them shopping alone. I let them pick the store. I let them pick their clothes (with a small amount of intervention when needed). And I let them pick a treat. 

I also made a huge sacrifice and let them each pick out a package of socks. I'm a bit of a control freak regarding socks. I want everyone to have plain, boring, white socks (with an exception for Scotty and Nicky who are allowed to have a few pairs of church socks). I don't like mating socks, so I want them all to be the same. The pay off? I never have lost socks. Ever. If one of my children's 22 white socks gets lost, I never have to know because A) I never count to make sure 22 socks come out of the laundry, and B) they all match each other. Scotty and Nicky share socks. I just give half of the men's socks to each of them when I do laundry. I have my white socks, Daisy has her white socks, and Zoe and Eva share socks. 

This is how we sock. 

But all that went kaput when I allowed my kids to pick their own socks. Now we have LOL doll socks, Frozen socks, and colorful socks, and I am taking a lot of deep breaths. And I have three very happy girls (Nicky just went with the usual white socks I buy for him and Scotty. Bless the dear child!)

But anyway...

The first shopper was Eva. She picked Walmart. She wanted everything. I had to remember not to buy her everything. She sweet talked me into a few extra things - the little dickens! She came home with a bucket of Utz cheese balls. 

The next shopper was Zoe. She also picked Walmart. I was curious to see if she would pick any of the same clothes Eva did (she didn't) (I didn't let anyone show their clothes to anyone else until everyone had been shopping. I also didn't let them tell each other where they picked to go shopping). 

Zoe picked a lot of very colorful things. Zoe is a quick shopper. She marches in, grabs what she wants, and she's out of there! She likes to have layers, so her trademark outfit for the season consists of a short-sleeved shirt, a jacket, a skirt, a pair of pants, a belt, and some star shoes and a sequin bow (which she'll never keep in her hair because Zoe doesn't do well with hair accessories or hair styles of any kind). She kept telling me she needed this and that to "complete the outfit." I don't know where she got that from.

Daisy was next, and she was the most challenging. Daisy is too big for children's clothing, and it's hard because she is still very much a child. I wanted to go somewhere that I knew would have dressing rooms open. I heard that JC Penney allows access to the dressing rooms, so we tried there first, but holy moly, are they expensive! We spent about five minutes in JC Penney before we bailed and went to Old Navy... where we also bailed. 

We ended up at Ross, where there are no dressing rooms open currently, and took our chances. The juniors section is 99% crop tops, so we shopped mostly from the women's section, trying our darndest to find clothes that wouldn't make Daisy look like, well... me. She picked a few shirts I wasn't sure about. And I talked her out of some really ugly stuff (think neon yellow shirt and mustard yellow leggings). 

Daisy needed shoes, so we tried a few pairs on at Ross. The poor girl has really wide feet that are also thick from top to bottom (she can thank me for that), so finding shoes for her is a nightmare. I ended up taking her to Walmart (that's three trips to Walmart in one day, for anyone who's counting) to see if we could find her a pair of shoes like a pair she already has. We found some in a new color! Woohoo! She also picked out a few more shirts and the ugliest leggings I've ever seen (okay, not really. I have seen worse, but these are pretty ugly, and she fell in love with them, so what was I supposed to do?) Daisy tried on all her clothes when we got home, and we're so lucky that they all fit, and we don't have to return any of them!

Then it was Nicky's turn. His school has a strict dress code, so his school wardrobe consists of polos and khakis. He's just wearing all last year's stuff again this year, so I took him to Hobby Lobby and bought him a foam airplane. 

All of my kids told me how much fun it was to go shopping, and they even mentioned it in their bedtime prayers. And Nicky is very proud of his back-to-school airplane.