Lessons In Back To School Shopping

With Jayla entering Kindergarten this year and the list of school supplies in hand we were excited to go shopping and pick out all of her supplies. Along the way my excitement quickly wore off and I learned a few things along the way.

My state's tax free weekend is this weekend coming up. Anything school related, supplies, clothes, bedding, electronics, etc, is all tax free along with all the sales that will be going on. I wasn't going to battle the craziness of tax free weekend for her small school supply list when they were already having the same sales this past weekend that they will have next weekend. I am planning on going out in the craziness for some school clothes and after shopping for the supplies I am debating on how much I really want to battle that, but I will be battling that alone.

I'm all about giving Jayla choices and letting her pick her own stuff out and that is where my lesson in back to shopping comes in. Do it by yourself, leave the kids at home. Seriously, it would have been so much easier if I had just done it by myself.

One of her supplies is a clipboard, Walmart(no we don't have a Target) only had some zebra and cheetah prints for $2.98 and I figured I could get her one cheaper somewhere else so I told her we will get one at Fred's on the way home. Fred's is kind of like a Family Dollar just in case you didn't know.

We get to Fred's and she picks out a pink translucent one. Pink her is favorite color so of course she picked that one out. While waiting in line to pay for her clipboard I grab a small bag of trail mix for 99cents. I ended up leaving the store with only the trail mix because the clipboard rang up for $3.50. I'm not paying more for a lower quality, flimsy, plastic clipboard when I could have got the zebra print one at Walmart that Jayla said she wanted more.

I told her we will head back to Walmart right now before we head to the next town to pick up your bookbag that I ordered. As we are walking out of the store I hear crying and I look down at her and this is what I see.

 

 I'm confused as to why she is crying and this was seriously my exact reaction.

 

 

I finally got it out of her as to what she was crying about through the crocodile tears that are pouring down her face.I was not expecting the answer I got. Can you guess her reasons for crying over the clipboard even though she knew she was going to get the one she wanted more? She was going to miss the pink one. Yep, that's right, she is going to miss it.

 My only reaction to that craziness was

 

 

 

 

Once we get back to Walmart to get her zebra print clipboard guess what she finds. A pink zebra print clipboard. Once again, she is in heaven and my patience for this back to school shopping crap is wearing off quickly.

Remember that 99 cent bag of trail mix I bought, yeah I didn't get to it because when I was opening the bag it ripped and the whole bag went flying all over the inside of my car. Just my luck.

Now that the clipboard situation is under control I drive 30 minutes to pick up the backpack that I ordered. Jayla and I had already looked on etsy and picked out a cute one to order until she saw a picture of the backpack that her best friend is getting and she wanted it. Her friend got blue and Jayla was getting pink. They were cute chevron backpacks and it was cheaper then the one we had picked out on Etsy so I was down. I get to the little boutique and the backpacks are a lot smaller in person then they appeared in the picture and they have Jayla's monogram wrong. Go figure huh. The lady said it actually happens quite a bit with over the phone orders. You would think that they would figure out a way to eliminate mix ups over the phone. I was suppose to leave the store with two backpacks, Jayla's and her best friends. I only left with her best friends. I was even more aggravated at this time and was ready to pull my hair out.

Once we get back into my town I decided to make a stop at a store just by the off chance that they had cute backpacks and the first one I see is the one I was prepared to go home and order from Etsy. Score! I have a happy child, she is in love with the backpack! I pay for the backpack and go to take it off of her so we can monogram it and the tears start to flow again. She didn't want to leave it at the store but wanted to have it monogrammed. The amazing lady that was there told Jayla that she will put hers in front of everyone else and have her backpack ready in a couple of hours. 

After the day I had that was seriously awesome and now Jayla has a cute backpack for school and she told me that she likes that one better then her best friend's backpack. Score!!!

Isn't it cute!!!

 Learn from me people, go back to school shopping alone!!