A RealFamilies RealFun Blog

Aug 25 2008

Better than a safety pin

Category: At Home

Having never met a bargain I didn't like, I shop at children's consignment stores. I love these stores because you can find items that are normally too expensive to buy at rock bottom prices. To put it another way, even though I love Gymboree, I'm a Target shopper, so I only get my Gymboree garments on consignment.

There is a caveat at buying on consignment. Even if you're a careful shopper, and give an outfit the once over for spots and tears, you never know how well you did until your child actually wears the clothing.

I had bought Lucie a cute pair of pajamas from a clothing brand I trusted. Well, it must have been an old pair -- even though it wasn't faded -- because the elastic in the pants stretched out after one wearing. I discovered this when Lucie came downstairs one morning holding the front of pants up, while the rest of her was flapping in the breeze (luckily she was wearing a night time diaper.)

Since I was in the middle of fixing breakfast, I looked around for a safety pin to fasten her pants to her top. However, the safety pins were all upstairs in my sewing box. Then I got a brilliant idea. I opened the giant drawer with all of my more eclectic kitchen utensils, everything from a handheld lemon juicer to the strawberry stem remover. Rummaging around, I finally found it -- a large kitchen clip.

Gathering up a bunch of material, I fastened the clip and clicked it shut. Lucie looked at my work, then up at me and smiled saying, "Cool, I'm like a bag of chips."

Now where did I put that salsa?