We went to the mall last week to go shopping for Fall clothes. It was perfectly lovely. I shopped mostly at the Carters outlet. She played at the table of blocks in the middle of the store and I shopped. I have to admit it made me so anxious to have her out of my sight, I wouldn't go around the backs of the racks. She played happily with another little girl. Well, more played next to her than played with her. We got lots of nice outfits and moved on. Gap had nothing to write home about. Gymboree was mostly just frightening. So was the Children's Place. Both stores had more toddler/kid than infant clothing, and what they did have looked like it had come straight out of a Hannah Montana episode. Lilah doesn't wear anything with writing on it (special exceptions are made for things like the "Save Some For Me" shirt her Grannie got her, with a picture of the Earth on it). But my child is not the one you'll catch wearing the "Brat" or "Princess" t shirt, or anything with sequins or glitter. The clothes I buy for her are bright, colorful, usually mix-and-match outfits (buy less and end up with more!), and the only writing you'll find on anything I just bought her is a tiny embroidered "adorable" on the sleeve of a dress I just bought her. It was so small I didn't even notice it until I came home.
I was feeling more than disgusted by the baby mini-skirts and sequined vests decided to call it a day after wandering the Children's Place. We were making out way through the veritable mob of well-dressed mothers, miserable fathers, and carefully groomed children when I heard a small peep from the front of the stroller. "Hat!" Lilah is decidedly anti-headwear, and not for lack of her mother trying to change her mind. She takes hats off and flings them. I looked and saw she was pointing to a row of hats on a shelf. "Yes, those are hats, Lilah."
"My hat!" I sighed. 'I wish!' I thought.
"No, love. You hate hats."
"Hat, Mama!" I picked one up and handed it to her. She jammed it on her head over her eyes. I laughed. It did look adorable. She took it off and handed it to me. "Hat." I put it on her head. She pulled the brim over her eyes and giggled, then pulled it off. "Peek!" We played that game for a few minutes before she put it on again and kept it on.
"Do you want this hat, Li?"
"Mine."
"Well, okay. Your hat." I was actually overjoyed. Not only did she have excellent taste, but she was already making her own clothing decisions at a year and a half. My mother still tried to dress me in coordinated outfits when I was 11, and had more than what could be considered a healthy say in my wardrobe at 16. We endured a line of unpleasantly conventional people to get to the register. I didn't see one person ahead of me that spent less than $150.00. Most spent much more. And we were checking out with a solitary hat. I laughed a little to myself about it. Lilah grabbed the ten dollar bill out of my hand and I helped her hand it to the check out lady, who looked like someone had, to borrow an expression from my friend Melissa, "pissed in her cornflakes". We left the Children's Place victorious, hat in tow.
We decided on a victory lunch at a little cafe. I got a great turkey and artichoke flatbread and Lilah had a three-cheese flatbread, orange slices, and as a special treat she even got an apple juice. I informed her of this (her first doctor always said, "Let her eat her fruit, not drink it," so juice is very rare), and she started bouncing in my arms. "Appa juice, Mama! Appa juice! Juuuuice!" She was very excited. I watered it down 50/50 and she never knew the difference. We chatted over lunch and I reveled in how great our day had been. One of the things that had been drilled into my head over and over as a child/teen/adult was my mother saying, "I hate shopping. I'm not a girly-girl and I hate girl stuff." Strangely she grew out of this when Gracie was born and became to her the mother I had always wanted but had resigned myself to never getting, believing her to be truly incapable of it. Apparently, it was just me. It was always me. Lilah and I are not "girly-girls" by any means. She loves her ride-on firetruck above all her other toys. She roars like a demon and eats dirt like a champ. But she genuinely enjoyed spending a day at the mall shopping for her clothes with her mama, and even started picking out her own things and inserting her own tastes and opinions. So I'm really thankful for a little white hat and a sweet little girl and a trip to the mall.
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