In Which I Go Shopping and Survive

In case it hasn't already been made obvious, I'm not the kind of girl who likes the shop. In fact, I LOATHE shopping with a similar amount of hatred that I save for people who "forget" to eat. Unfortunately for me, we're headed Up North to attend my nephew's Bar Mitzvah, and this event requires some serious shopping. Actually what this event requires is months and months and months of my Mom annoying the shit outta me (Hi Mom, love you, Mom!) about the clothing for this event. What will I wear? What will the children wear? I will surely DIE unless you tell me you have clothes organised, because OH MY GOD WHAT WILL YOU WEAR? Why are you not shopping yet? YOU NEED CLOTHES, MICHELLE. I AM SERIOUS ABOUT THIS. (Okay Mom. Love you, Mom. Now go away, Mom, because I will not be naked and neither will my kids. Love you, Mom.)

I've been avoiding this shopping business like the plague. Add my avoidance combined with the frenzy which is pre-Xmas shopping, and I'm pretty much curled up under my desk, rocking back and forth and refusing to open my eyes. Today I happened to have some free time (a rarity in my life) and a free child (another rarity) so I thought I would take her to buy some fancy clothes and more importantly, some fancy shoes. She is cursed with the same feet as her mother - e.g. they would do as water skis if you were in a lake and lost your first pair.

In my head, I had a cute little pair of patent leather Mary Janes. In my car, I had a kid with SIZE 4/5 WOMEN'S feet...and a very defined sense of style. Hmmm. Yes. As 007 would say, "Good times, good times." I should also mention that today in Melbourne (and yesterday, and tomorrow) it is raining cats and dogs. It's also cold, windy and altogether horrid ... which means everyone and his asshole cousin is in the mall. After 30 minutes (seriously) of looking for parking I'm hoping not to find (because then I can go HOME and forget this shopping crap) I find a spot. Damn.

It took about 4.5 seconds from the time we hit the front door to the time we paid for DD to find a really cute, dare I say practical, fits her well and a little bit sparkly pair of black shoes. Perfect, right? Get this - leather and all, and forty bucks. DD and I were rockin' the whole party shoe buying business - she liked them, I liked them, they fit, we're buying them. Okay, not quite the Mary Janes I wanted, but pretty close and she loved them, so like hell was I going to leave those babies behind.

Then we decided to go looking for a dress for her, because we need loads of them and I wanted to have a back up or two on hand. Let's face it, 7 year old girls are not only fashionistas, they are fickle as all hell - so what they like on Monday they will hate on Wednesday and then adore on Friday, only to hate it on Sunday. Thus began the dress-finding expedition. Truth be told, there were actually quite a few lovely things to be had, and DD1 is blessed with a gorgeous figure, so most things fit her and are flattering to boot. She had a pretty good selection to choose from. The only real trouble was that everything is summer oriented, and we're heading into the North American winter...but even that can be overcome with a cute cardy, so we're good, right?

Surprisingly, it took only a few dresses to find her something which was truly perfect. It fit her like a glove, it was pink (and thus immediately the "most beautiful dress in the world!") and what's better, it was age appropriate and even within my price range. Better still, it has a lovely floaty swirly skirt which fans out all princess-like and yet does not expose her smalls to the world. YAY ME and YAY her, because we both managed to get through this with a minimum of tantrums (me) and complaining (me) and begging to go home (me) and demands for food (me).

Problem? The shoes don't match the dress, and even fashion-ass-backwards me knows you cannot possibly wear black shoes with a princess pink dress.

Damn. And there I was thinking I had this whole shopping thing...in the bag. (You knew that was coming, didn't you?)