Back to school shopping shouldn’t be hard.
But for some reason, this year has been awful.
I have a 14-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter. . . and what a difference in these two.
For my son, he still wears anything I lay out for him and never complains. He was already stocked up on shorts (that still fit, yay!), so I just ordered him a bunch of new shirts to go with them from Belk.
He wasn’t picky about shoes either, so when we went to the shoe store, he just said he wanted them to be black and picked out a pair in less than five minutes. (We also found out his foot had grown almost two sizes, surprise!)
Meanwhile, on the other side of the store, my 9-year-old daughter was driving me crazy. Not only would she not have any shoes in the entire store, I almost had to make a scene to get her to try on a pair just so I could see what size she needed. Then I told her we would order some online.
(Kid’s feet will just grow, they don’t say anything, and the next thing you know you’re buying two sizes larger!)
After we got my son’s shoes and headed out of the store, I told my husband what a hard time we’d had while he and my son were on the opposite side of the store.
Later that afternoon, we spent some time on Amazon to see if we could find a pair. She was bored to tears having to sit by me for more than 10 minutes and scroll through shoes. It turns out, she wanted a pair of Jordans. What?? I didn’t know they still made those and sure didn’t know how much they cost! And, I don’t even know how she knew Jordans existed. (I can only assume YouTube.)
I had to be the mean mom and tell her she was not, in fact, going to get those $160 shoes. She found a “cheaper pair” at $140. Nope again. Finally, she found a pair of Nike high-tops that were “much cheaper” at $85, then she didn’t understand why I wouldn’t buy the last pair in stock because it was a size seven and she wears a size five.
And as for clothes. My goodness! Not only does she not like in-store shopping, she gets bored looking at clothes online after about five minutes.
That girl would live in her pajamas, but when she has to change, she literally wants t-shirts and athletic shorts. The only shoes she’s been wearing since Christmas are a pair of white crocs.
I used to buy the majority of her clothes at consignment sales (which are coming up soon!) but now when I go, we FaceTime so I make sure to get what she likes instead of bringing home a bunch of things she won’t wear.
We looked at a few websites and she found a few tops and shorts she liked, so I quickly added those to the online cart and purchased them. Part of me is proud of her independence and confidence in what she wants. But the other part just wants to be able to order her clothes and have her wear what I pick out like her brother does.
At least one thing was easy–we were able to order the prepackaged box of school supplies!
