Today’s parenting adventure

[eimarra]

The girl starts first grade on Monday. All summer long, she’s been wearing her old clothes, but the school district (reasonably enough) frowns on hot pants and miniskirts. The rule is “fingertip-length,” which I didn’t understand at first (her fingers are only a few inches long, after all) but have learned means when her hands hang at her sides, there has to be cloth down at least as far as her fingertips.

This meant an afternoon of shopping.

At my daughter’s age, I wasn’t a fan of clothes shopping. I certainly would not have tried on an outfit, sang a full song (often with choreography), and insisted on “checking my moves” in the mirror. For every single outfit. She told me she was only going to do it for the outfits she liked. Let’s see — mostly pink, some purple, hearts, flowers, glitter, a bit of black, and one superhero shirt (Batgirl, Wonder Woman, and Supergirl). Guess how often she didn’t like the outfits?

Now, not everything was a perfect fit — some things, a 7 fit better, some an 8 (and to get fingertip length, we had to go with 8 for skirts, and I’ll put darts in at the waistline) — but most of it worked well for her. Which means it’s a good thing I took my iPad and read on my Kindle app.

And then, after we finished buying almost an entire new wardrobe? We had to buy shoes. For both of us.

She found like four pairs of shoes she wanted (yeah, not even at “buy one, get one half off”) and was sad she couldn’t find a pair of boots. Me, I wound up with a pair of men’s shoes because it’s really hard to find women’s shoes in an E-width, which my right foot (but not my left) needs. An hour and a half to end up with one pair of shoes each.

When we got home, she immediately started in with a fashion show so her dad (and brother, but mostly dad) could see her new outfits. She wasn’t going to take the new pajamas (Frozen) off, but I told her if she kept them on, she’d have to go to bed. (No, no, anything but that!) so she wore her new pink dress for the evening instead.

I think she’s still nervous about a new, bigger, school — but at least I should be able to get her out of bed with, “Which new clothes do you want to wear today?”

Any adventures in your life lately?

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.