the place for shades

if your children are anything like mine, they love their sunglasses. just like daddy, they grab their shades on the way out the door... that is, if we can find them. the way it usually goes is that ethan puts his sunglasses on and heads to the car, and caroline has one foot out the door when she realizes (gasp!) brother has on his glasses! i must go get mine! we are most likely already running late, and the search for the cute little pair of pink flowery shades makes us even later. after digging through the kids' two junk boxes, i usually still cannot find them. so now are we not only late, but caroline's world has ended (at least for the moment). as of last week, we had three pairs of glasses to our name and none were accounted for. after listening to caroline lament, "bright! bright!" all the way to wherever we were going, i resolved to stock up on kids' sunglasses. i thought target would have some cheap ones, but um, no. i was not about to pay $5.99 for hannah montana sunglasses. one, $6 is way too much for something that may or may not last two weeks. two, hannah montana? for a two year old? c'mon. those of you who know me well know that i steer clear of cartoon characters on stuff in general, so i was not about to pay even more for glasses that i didn't even like. so i went to walmart. same problem. $6 for dora, diego, spongebob (don't even get me started), ariel, snow white, and the rest of the princess brigade.

i remembered that children's place had a good selection of kids' glasses on sale the last time i was in there, so i called to see if they were still on sale. the sweet lady informed me that their regular price for sunglasses was 2 for $5! that's right, i could get two pairs of adorable, stylish sunglasses for less than the tacky ones at our beloved superstores. so that very evening, ethan and i had a date to the mall. i'm sure the children's place employee was ready to turn in her two weeks' notice when we were still there 30 minutes later looking at sunglasses... but with ethan as my "helper", it was taking me twice as long to decide. we walked out of there with three pairs for ethan and caroline and one pair for amelia to match caroline's "farkly" (sparkly) sunglasses. (and some matching ones for cousin karina, too!) i plan on keeping a sunglasses basket on my desk so that they will be easily found on the way out the door. now i just have to clean off my desk to make room for a basket! :)

if you are in need of shades for your kiddos, i encourage you to check out children's place. they have sizes for 0-2, 2-4, 4-7, and 8-14. if you don't have one locally, you can shop online. there is a flat shipping rate of $5, which is still cheaper than a pair of spongebob glasses!