I have begun to realize why my mom dressed us kids in hand-me-downs, aside from her natural frugality. It's that taking kids shopping is absurdly difficult. And exhausting. Take this afternoon, for example. I picked the kids up from Mother's Day Out and headed to Baby Gap to attempt to find some jeans for my growing little girl. Who happens to have the abdominal circumference of a twig and could easily fit in the waist of a 12 month pair of pants, were it not for the length!

I started with Baby Gap because one of her only pairs of jeans that fit, or used to fit, was a pair of hand-me-down Baby Gap jeans. I had such hopes of getting some jeans by going to just one store!

After driving across town to the mall, I realized I had Kyle's car and therefore, no stroller to contain my squirmy, wormy toddler, August. So, with him as firmly clenched to one hip as I could manage, my diaper bag wedged onto my shoulder and Brooklyn's tiny hand clenched firmly in my own on the other side, we strode determinedly into Baby Gap. I promptly plucked every type of 4T jeans they had from the shelves and headed into the dressing room. Which blessedly, had a lock and an enormous mirror to entertain August. Brooklyn's recently been having a growth spurt in height alone. Her torso just gets tinier as her body stretches upward, making the task of clothing her from the waist down, dern-near impossible. I refuse to let her wear "high-waters" through the winter: it's no longer practical to take her short jeans and stylishly cuff them at the bottom.

So I have to look for adjustable waist jeans. None of which Gap had in stock. And bless her heart, the 3T jeans just hover over her ankles (still big at the waist), and the 4T....well they just sank from her hips to her ankles immediately. So, after trying on every pair and giving up, we walked right back out of the mall empty-handed. And in record time, because August decided he must walk or kill us both trying. Grabbing his hand and Brooklyn's, we zig-zagged our way to our car and headed for Children's Place.

I really hate that store. All the merchandise feels just jammed in there, so as you attempt to maneuver into a section, you inadvertently bonk into every rack and shelf of clothing and any other customers there might be. This is particularly irksome when your son's little hands are straining to grab and fling to the floor anything he can reach. Plus, all the garish colors make my head hurt! And even on a day when the store is relatively dead, somehow the whole place sets my nerves on fire and just bothers me. I'm not saying I don't like their clothes...they have some really cute stuff for boys...and have been the only brand of jeans that fit Brooklyn. Plus, their dressing rooms are really just sheets of cloth strung up ala shower curtain style - no locking mechanism to restrain curious children.

So when I finally get some jeans down for B to try on, I've expended about 1,000 calories trying to keep her near me, keep August on my hip, keep my bag from falling off my shoulder, avoid knocking over the other shoppers and claim a dressing room. Then August decides it will be real fun to hop off the little seat in the dressing room and escape. Repeatedly. While his sister stands there in her skivvies, he darts away from me and then wails at the top of his lungs as I snag him back. Repeatedly. Meanwhile, I'm getting pretty disgusted with the general state of toddler jeans as Brooklyn's tiny size proves once again too small for any pairs of jeans.

Thinking maybe we could find something in the 3T range, even though she's too tall for all her current 3T Children's Place jeans, I hold them up and am surprised to find them looking really long on her. Hm. Just about this time, August decides to pull every neatly folded shirt off the nearest shelf. I spank his hand. He screams at the top of his lungs and reaches again. I spank his hand again. He wails even louder. I begin to sense annoyance from the employees discreetly watching us. I could care less.

For about the 6th time, August makes an angry swipe at a stack of shirts, dislodging them all. I grab him firmly by the shoulders, very quietly and firmly rebuking his disobedience and then spank his little thigh with a little gusto. This time, he is inconsolable. Wailing, screaming, snot streaming down his nose...wounded not in spirit or body, but just mad. I decide at that moment, as Brooklyn is fingering a display of hot pink mittens, that I don't care whether the jeans fit, we're buying them. We'll try them on at home. I am just plain exhausted by this point. My stomach muscles hurt from trying to constrain my 28 pound son who is throwing his whole body backwards out of my arms, my head hurts from trying to concentrate on the task at hand, I'm parched, hungry...

I realize as I get them all buckled back in for the 3rd time, that this is why I get asked by people if I'm on a diet or if I've lost weight or am trying to lose weight. No, it's just having kids. Or maybe just my two kids. It's also why I do my shopping online.

And if anyone out there has any suggestions about jeans that are long enough and slim enough to fit my growing twig of a daughter, I am so open. I would just about pay anything to find something that fits this little thing. Sigh.