Miss2 was hell today, very whingy and demanding, and Tracey thinks this was somehow my fault.
It all started because a school shoe of Miss9’s blew out yesterday, leaving her with one sole flapping about like a fish on land. Meanwhile I was home sick today, nursing myself back to good health curled up on the lounge watching Toy Story 2.
Now you might see these two things as unrelated, but you would be wronger than a man in a marriage.
Because of the shoe blow out, this morning Tracey made a mad dash to the shopping centre to buy new ones.
Because there was a ‘buy one pair, second pair half price’ deal Tracey saw an opportunity to save money.
Not.
Tracey saw an opportunity to buy more shoes.
Gleefully checking her purse to see how many credit cards she had on her, she gave the girls their sizes and instructions and sent them hurtling through the shop looking for something suitable.
Within a minute, Miss5 was back with her new shoes on her feet. They were pink with two inch heals and her little feet barely made it out of the toe box.
“Um, I don’t think-”
“But they’re my size!!” screamed Miss5, teetering precariously.
And they kind of were – they were a size 9 in adults, and not childrens.
Not that Miss5 left disappointed. Tracey came home with 5 pairs of new shoes. My lack of high fives and exclamations of ‘Oh wow! Shoes! Yes!!’ didn’t go unnoticed.
“You don’t think I did well?”
“Why five?” I asked, as Tracey deposited box after shoe-box onto the table. How do you discover you need more shoes at the shops? It didn’t make absolute sense to me. “I thought we needed to replace one pair?”
I don’t know why I wasted my breath. I’ll give Tracey this, she was able to explain the logic behind each and every purchase. Or I assume so. I drifted off to my happy place fairly early in the conversation. Although this lack of gushing and, let’s face it, genuine interest might possibly be attributable to the fact I’m not well.
Tracey, on the other hand, was suddenly full of energy. Shopping can do that.
“You watch the kids. I’m cleaning out their rooms,” she announced, bounding off to the bedrooms.
Now this bit does make sense – because Tracey had all these new shoes to somehow fit into their cupboards she needed to make space.
So I put on a movie and Miss2 and I lay on the lounge together, with only occasional interruptions as Mum as she walked past the telly with armfuls of toys she expected to be able to throw out.
A little pointer for all you Mums and Dads out there – the Toy Story stories probably aren’t the right movies to put on the telly when you’re in the middle of throwing out old and unused toys.
Well I know that now.
And fortunately it’s a lesson I won’t quickly forget because Tracey bought herself a new pair of shoes this morning with which she intends kicking me up the bum 🙂
When not typing away over here and checking his stats every two minutes
Bruce Devereaux hangs out at his ‘BIG FAMILY little income’ Facebook Page.
’raising a family on little more than laughs’
1 pair half price? WHERE man, Where? 🙂
Payless Shoes, Emma. Actually the prices were excellent – 5 pairs of shoes for $60. Especially given one pair was down from $29.95.