A DAY OF SHOPPING

For those who don't already know Emma, let me tell you that she is a very bubbly, busy girl. She's got personality. She is playful, energetic, ALWAYS ON THE GO.
When in large buildings, Emma usually gets OVERSTIMULATED. I must admit she has somewhat slowed down in the last year. But people who meet us still tell me, Wow, she is busy... I wonder why???
While on vacation, walking in a restaurant, Emma was really loud. You have to understand, we've been in the car for many, many hours. As I took her to the bathroom for a quazillion diaper change, I told her we were going to have supper and that we should be QUIET. She behaved so wonderfully throughout the whole meal, I thought I was on to someting...
Back home, I decided that Emma and I would go on outings more and more often. So while Amy and her boyfriend Jesse had their day full with piling wood than go-karting with Carl, as a reward, I set out with Emma to do the school supply shopping...
First stop, the school supplies store. She sat in the cart the whole time. I was offering her choices as to which pencil sharpener she wanted, BLUE or RED. She said red. Okay. Then, said blue. I turned around, got the 2 colors again and asked her one more time which one she wanted, she said blue, so blue it was. And so on. She chose pencils, erasers, even binders for her sister!
So far so good... We were now headed to my favorite Thrift shop, a place I haven't been to in quite a while. We were going to look for clothes for Emma.
Again, she sat in the cart the whole time. I was amazed at how nice the clothes were for children. So I kept putting stuff in our cart until it was quite full. Emma would sometimes put stuff in too. And I was putting it back as best as I could.
Then I thought she should at least try on the pants because Emma is a bit bulky at the waist. Don't get me wrong. She is far from being fat. It's just that she is short and that makes it hard to choose the right size in pants. I had sizes from 6 to 10...
We entered the change room, with the cart, and set out to try on at least the pants. One, two, three, four, and, so on... Emma kept on trying pieces. She was looking at herself in the miror and was saying either NICE, CUTE, or BEAUTIFUL. And if I told her she looked beautiful, she would tell me THANK YOU. So we kept on trying, and trying. I felt that at any moment she would have enough, any child would. I was kneeling the whole time. I was sweating from being restrained to such a small area. But hey, we had a thing going on, I wasn't about to stop.
I simply could not believe it. She tried everything there was in that cart. At one point, I saw a jean jacket I knew I had not chosen. She must have put it in the cart. So she tried it on too. WoW, she looked so grown up. Of course we had to buy it. And we only discarded 3 items...
Emma has learned a new word: SHOPPING.
Believe it or not, we bought 14 shirts, 8 pants, 3 p.j.'s, 1 dress, 1 skirt, l jean jacket, 1 hoodie, 1 pair of shoes and, yes, a Halloween costume! Emma had tried on at least 33 pieces of clothing!!!
The whole experience cost me 120.00$ Back at home, my husband thought I had gone mad. Hey, how much clothes would she have gotten at a regular store??? I cleaned her dresser and threw out all the stained stuff. Yes, Emma is ready for school. And, yes, I shall go out with my girl more often. We had so much fun. There was no chasing her around, there was no noodle flops on the floor, there was no yelling or whinning. Hey, she even said the whole alphabet to a staff member.
Yes, Emma, we shall go SHOPPING again togerther, soon...And thank you for such a fun day!!!