These Boots Are Made for Walkin'

It all started with a Halloween costume.

This year for Halloween, Kailey decided she wanted to be a pirate princess, whatever that is. I think she just wanted to be a pirate, but since she's been a princess of some kind (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, etc.) for the past several Halloweens, she thought it would sound better if she added "princess" to the end. Fine. Pirate princess it is.

I jumped online to look for a pirate princess costume, and, more importantly, to find out how much it was going to set us back. Mommy's don't think about those kinds of things. Daddy's do. I visited about 300 websites looking for pirate princess costumes. All of them had them, but most were sold out of Kailey's size. It seems that only "small" girls will be dressing up as pirate princesses this year. (I also found some pirate queen costumes for Diane, but she politely declined...after giving me a disgusted look.)

I finally found a costume in Kailey's size and was shocked to see that it cost nearly $60. Kailey loved it. Great. I didn't care that I had already scoured 300 websites. I would scour 300 more before I spent 60 bucks on a Halloween costume (again).

I continued my quest for a pirate princess costume, and, AH HA, found one that looked good for $22. I showed it to Kailey and she liked it! HALLELUJAH (you have to sing it like the song). I ordered the costume, all the while doing a happy dance in my head. The happy dance stopped when I was later informed by Diane that she and Kailey needed to go shopping for boots. You see, the girl in the pirate princess picture was wearing boots. But boots were not included in the costume. Crap.

So, the costume arrived a few days later, and off went Diane and Kailey to go boot shopping. I was at work when Diane called to give me the play-by-play. The boots Kailey liked were $40. FORTY DOLLARS. But, the good news was that the store was having a two-for-one sale, so Diane bought a pair of boots, too, and got Kailey's boots for free. Women can rationalize their way through anything. And I'm freakin' surrounded by them, outnumbered three to one. I think they spent $65 on both pair, which isn't bad, but still...I could see my Halloween costume savings disappearing before my eyes.

You can probably see what's coming. Diane got a pair of boots. Kailey got a pair of boots. Kyra was at Grammy and Papa's house.

So guess where we went on Sunday? We spent another $25 on boots for Kyra and now all of my girls are happy as clams. What did I get out of the whole deal? The satisfaction of knowing my girls are happy as clams.

I can't win.