Adding our new baby shoes to our website the other day {African Footprints} reminded me of going Shopping with my little girl a few weeks ago.
Now the whole experience made me realise two things: One - I now have a new found sympathy for my husband when he takes me shopping and Two - the differences in men and and women when it comes to shopping would seem to be in us from birth!
Now my eldest son is twelve and if I take him either clothes or shoe shopping it usually starts the same way with him saying "do I have to come?" to which I respond "of course you do! how else will I know if it fits?" but that is usually the maximum amount of drama involved, because as soon as we get to the shops I show him an item of clothing or a pair of shoes and I get the usual response of "yeah OK" so job done!!
But this now brings me to my daughter....oh boy...the difference is amazing! Now she has only just turned three, so those of you without daughters are probably thinking she is just a little girl, how bad can it be? Surely it cant be as bad as shopping with your wife or girlfriend right? Well let me tell you about a day a couple of weeks ago when I took her shoe shopping. . .
Now she needed shoes. Plain and simple shoes, not trainers, not wellies and not sandals (the reason i am giving you this detail will soon become apparent!) So, I decide to take her to our local shopping centre. There are plenty of places here that I can buy little girls shoes, so I mistakenly think this will be a quick outing...how little did I know!!
So we enter the first shop and I begin to show her some shoes to which she quickly responds "No! It doesn't fit!" (even though she has not tried any on) or points to a wellie boot or trainer saying "that one, its pretty!" even though that's not what we are there to buy. So we leave this shop and go to the next one, and the next one and so on, each time getting the same response. All the time I am getting more and more frustrated, especially at the look of horror I get when when I suggest a pair of cute little girls shoes to her. The look that says "how can you even suggest that I wear that!!" (sound familiar husbands and boyfriends?) We next go into Clarks, a shoe shop that accurately measures little girls and boys feet...now this was a mistake! She screams down the shop! And after the lady has measured her feet the only way I can get her to stop crying is to promise that we will not buy anything from this shop and that we will go to another shop.
So off we go to yet another shop! At this point I would like to say that this whole experience has taken nearly two hours and that I also have with me my 9 month old and 12 year old so you can safely say I was near breaking point! So in we go to what I promise myself will be the last shop before I give up! We start looking at the shoes and straight away I start getting the same response. But then she sees a pair of sandals and declares at the top of her voice "that one! that one! they are pretty!" and that's when it happened...I caved...I brought her the sandals! and not just one pair, I brought her two! And so we walk out of the shop with one very tired mummy but one very happy little girl who insists on wearing one of her new pairs of sandals back to the car.
So here I am a few weeks later with a little girl who has two pairs of sandals but still needs a pair of shoes! But I can safely say that now I know her correct size I will just be ordering a pair online!
So men, the next time you take your wife, girlfriend, or daughter shopping and they get emotional, drag you round what seems like every single shop and often come home with something they either don't need or didn't go out to buy, please remember its not their fault! Just as we seem to have the inability to understand the offside rule in football, we cant help the way we shop...its in our genes! I also hope that our our online children's Boutique helps take the stress out of shopping for your children.
