Saturday

                            
On Saturday, Once Upon a Child had a 70% off sale. My kids really don't need any more clothes but I am a sucker for sales at thrift and resale shops. My girls and I got there 15 minutes early and we were the only ones standing outside the door, which I thought was kind of suspect. The guy just let us in when we showed up. We were alone in the store, with 70% off and we were getting first dibs. I felt like I won the lottery pretty much. We tackled the size 7 rack first and I had my daughter pick some stuff from the 10/12 section (yes, she is in 10/12 - I don't know how that happened). We had one rule: Mom has ultimate veto power. My kids will dress like homeless children and like it. True story. I generally let them wear what they want to wear because I don't want to put a lot of emphasis on appearance but I am sad that they don't like the clothes that I like. If I had a choice my kids would wear stuff like this:
                                        
                                                   or this:
                                      
But my kids would rather wear clothes like this:
                                       
                                            and this:
                                  
They are jeans and T-shirts kinds of kids. They also like bright, loud colors and if it is sparkly or be-dazzled they are in. You can imagine we had a few arguments over some of the things they picked out. "No, they made that for shirt for a streetwalker", "No, that looks like it came from 1995", "Remember the rules  -I get to veto." It was exhausting. My youngest found a shirt she really liked. It was a pink T-shirt that had the bat symbol on it. "Mama, it doesn't have a yellow sticker but can I still get it? PLEEEEEASE, it's Batman." She is her father's daughter. We threw it in the pile.

By that time my sister and mother had shown up and my girls and their 4 year old cousin went to the shoe boxes to try on shoes. They left a huge pile of shoes on the ground and ran off. I picked up the shoes and threw them in the bins and didn't think anything of it. A few minutes later I see my 4 year old niece walking around in pink cowboy boots. My daughter came up to me and said, "Mom, where are K's shoes?" "What shoes?" "They are white sparkle sandals, they were right here." She pointed to the area on the ground where they left the pile of shoes. I had put my nieces shoes in the For-Sale bin. I frantically searched through the bins but they were no where to be seem. Someone in the store had picked out her shoes to buy them, I just knew it. I went up to the front desk and explained what had happened and what the shoes looked like. A few minutes later a worker came up to me and said, "I think I found the lady that has the shoes." She pointed from a far to a customer shopping and I should see the shoes in her pile. The lady looked a little bit scary. I was a little bit nervous about approaching her but I didn't really feel like buying new shoes for her so I did it. The lady was annoyed but she gave the shoes back and all was right with the world.

I did pretty good that day. I got 19 tops, 3 skirts, 1 pair of leggings, and a pair of denim capris for $25. We all went to lunch afterwards and the kids were all having a nice time. I had planned to take the kids to the water park later and I told my sister I would take her daughter with us and she could spend the night. The kids were excited to have their cousin sleep over.

We went home and got in our suits and hit the water park. My poor niece is petrified of water going anywhere near her face and head so she had a horrible time. I felt bad. We went to the wave pool and I told her that she didn't have to put her head in the water. She waded in very suspiciously but seemed to have an okay time. Until the waves came. She plastered herself to me. She had her hands around my neck as tight as a noose. She pressed her cheek against mine and she shook. I was trying to pull her off of me, "You are okay, calm down." I got her to loosen her grip a little bit, and then I got her to let me put her down, then she was just holding my hands. She had a death grip on them. She jumped as the waves came and she turned to me and shouted, "Aunt Jossy, I learning." So cute. As soon as the waves stopped she started walking out. She had enough and wanted to go home. So we did.

I had to go to the grocery store after that so I took the three of them. My 2 kids in the grocery store is enough to drive someone to drink so the 3 was hellish. I was in a weird mood and was buying things I normally wouldn't. I purchased a box of Cookie Crisps. While I set the Cookie Crisps in my cart, I mourned the loss of the days when I actually had standards. I felt slightly embarrassed.

I survived the rest of the grocery trip and as I stood in line getting my groceries rung up, I spotted a Star magazine article, "Best and Worst Celebrity Moms." It graded them. This I had to read. I did, I read about horrible celebrity moms in the check out line while I ignored my own children. Oh, the irony!