On the way there, she was using the French pronunciation n: Tar-jjjjay (and if this is an indication of her language skills, it looks like someone is halfway to a translator if I, um, I mean if someone ever goes to France) and it was adorable.
We did some shopping and spent about 10 minutes converting the convertible sofa* they had sitting on an end-cap.
*As an aside, it was really cool. I wish I had $179 (plus tax) sitting around gathering dust because I would have taken one home. Even though we have no place to put it. And it wouldn't go with our living room. And it would probably break with the strain of two active kids climbing all over it. *sigh*
Anyway...
As we walked by the girl clothes section, Katie turned and wandered in. It was like her eyes were suddenly seeing the multitude of options out there where before there were only three; shorts, dress, pants. No exciting patterns, no new fabrics, just the same three clothing options in many shades of pink and purple filling her closet.
For so long, her usual outfit has consisted of knit pants, long sleeve knit shirt during the colder months and sundresses and knit shorts in the cooler months. Today, she explored the world of options.
I did not like it.
But she was glowing with big girl pride.
She wanted to try on sandals, pink pants (and not in a knit fabric!), a cute patterned jacket, two sundresses with cap sleeves, and two sundresses that were more like what
Like this ensemble:
Which made what I had to do especially hard.
I had to limit her purchases. I had to tell my sweet daughter that, even though she looks adorable in every single one of the outfits she tried on, we could not purchase all of them. It was tough but she's grown up hearing "We didn't budget for that this time" so in the hopes that it wouldn't fail me now, I pulled it out and fired away.
As I spoke the words, I closed my eyes a little expecting a full blown tantrum (she's never actually shopped for her own clothes before so I was thinking she might get attached to everything and have a really tough time with the reality of having to leave some stuff behind because "we didn't budget for it this time") but she absolutely surprised me with her maturity.
There were no tears, no shouts, no "mean mommy" name calling. Just acceptance.
What a relief.
I was having a little bit of a tough time accepting that she's grown into her own person... until 3 outfits into her trying on session, she looks at me and says "Mommy, I have to go potty." And I said "Are you sure? You just went less than an hour ago and you haven't even had anything to drink..." But she did. And like, right now. So I whipped off the Target outfit and threw on her dress and shorts and shoes, dumped everything into the cart, and told the attendant we would be back as we rushed down the aisle. Made it just in time. *Whew!*
Katie finally finished going potty (after we had a conversation like the mom and daughter I overheard talking in the Famous Dave's bathroom here) and we were ready to leave
I bought her a Snickers bar at the checkout (she usually asks for something so we treated ourselves - I made her share with me) and paid for the pink shorts, two dresses, and a few things from the dollar section (they had a 75% discount on all of the "black dots" and I think I spent about $3 from that section but I couldn't resist the lure of a good deal on stuff I didn't realize was missing from my life till I saw it there at 75% off) and headed to the grocery store. We were just about to turn onto the street in front of the store when Katie AGAIN told me she had to go potty. Arg. And again I asked her "Are you sure you have to go potty again? You just went!" but she was sure. So we visited their bathroom too. Not as nice as the ones at Target but hey, what do you expect.
Then we got our ice cream and headed home to John and Jacob.
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