3 little shoppers

Today we took the kids to the King of Prussia mall (4,000 stores to choose from!) to go back to school shopping.  As we went from store to store I quickly realized that each child had their own little way of doing things:

Zak: he liked anything and everything that we expressed a positive opinion about.  If we didn't look ecstatic about something, he would read our expressions and suddenly change his mind.  It really broke my heart to see how much he tried to please me by trying to guess what I would like most.  We also found out that he likes color and after being very careful to conceal our opinions we let him walk out of the store with the LOUDEST purple shirt.  I think it was the only thing that he truly picked out himself all day.

Eliot: Mr. Picky!!!  He was just the opposite of Zak and no matter how much we tried to manipulate him into changing his opinion he remained resolute.  He firmly told us that he didn't like stripes and would only wear a striped shirt if we made him.  I tried telling him that his engineer hat was striped and he liked that and he replied by saying, "A hat is a hat mom, I don't like stripes on my shirt."  By the end of the day we were able to get him to make a few concession.  He decided he would only wear a striped shirt if it had green stripes that went along the lower portion of the shirt ... we didn't find one that met his criteria.

Eliannah:  She likes pink! mostly hot pink and after picking up a pair of hot pink pants that wouldn't match anything she owned I knew this was going to be fun.  Once we made it over to Old Navy she got very excited about anything that was a dress or skirt and didn't want any pants at all.  While Phillip was over in the boys department I found some cute, burgundy, patent leather rain boots to try on her (Hey, it rains here and all we brought with us were sandals!) when we had this conversations

me: Eliannah, do you like these boots?

Eliannah: um... yeah, but only if I need them

(I go to put the first one on her)

Eliannah: Oh I like them!
(I put the second one on)
Eliannah: Oh, I need them, I do need them!

And so it starts ...  I know I've been there and done that!

I have to say, it sure beat going to the outlets in Pismo!