You Can Get So Much Crap For Five Dollars!

A few weeks ago, my good friend Sue Diamond-Phillips (not her real name, but I wish it was) wrote a blog post over at Diapers or Wine all about taking her five kids to Five Below. First off, I love her because those of us "crazy" enough to have a basketball team -sized family need to stick together. Secondly, I'm pretty sure she's stalking me because I had just been to Five Below that same week with my five kids. (Sue, stop stalking me. Even though I love it.)

If you haven't been to Five Below, it's better than your average crummy dollar store, and everything in it is $5 or less. Hence the name. There is nothing more exciting to my kids than when we tell them we're going to Five Below. Luckily for me, both Auntie Juju AND the Easter Bunny gave each of the kids a $5 gift card to the store. So, I had five very excited kids who couldn't wait to spend their respective $10. This is what I tweeted to Sue:

I knew she'd understand. See, as great as this place is when you need stocking stuffers or hula hoops, or more $4 sunglasses after you sat on your last pair, it's a lot to handle with the kids. 

We went yesterday with gift cards in hand.

Literally.

My three oldest children can do the math associated with figuring out what they can spend and what they want to get. The problem is, we have so many kids who have different interests, (plus the two who can't add and subtract yet), that they just fan out when we get inside the entrance. PJ & I try to keep an eye on them all, but I think it's more effective if one of us just stations themselves at the door to make sure none of them escapes.

Patrick is easy. He goes right in, and figures out what he wants. Usually he heads for the books. Yesterday he got a science experiment kit and some new sunglasses because he really needed sunglasses. Piece of cake.

Lucy, on the other hand, is very shrewd. She knows she has only $10 to spend and she isn't about to rush into any decisions. It's a painstaking process. Eventually, after I was following her around saying, "We can always come back if you can't decide," she settled on a necklace, friendship bracelet kit and some new shades. It was painfully slow, though.

Sophie is tough. She will walk right in, find something, and be all set. Until she walks ten more feet and finds something else that she wants more. Then she has to put the first thing back and figure out how many more dollars she can spend. This little scenario will repeat itself over and over until, finally, she settles on a game and a travel pillow for your neck. (Keep in mind, this place is full of candy and toys. Sophie gets a travel pillow. She's awesome.)

Sophie being Sophie

Sean and Charlotte gravitate toward the balls in the store. There are bouncy balls, basketballs, soccer balls... you get the idea. There are ginormous, silver trash cans full of all kinds of balls. Unfortunately, these two have to try them all out to figure out which one they'll buy this time. That's when you'll find PJ and I running like idiots down some aisle to retrieve the latest haphazardly bounced ball. It's a shining moment in parenthood.

Patrick and the little ones checking the bounce factor

Taking five kids with $50 in gift cards to a place where everything is $5 or less is a little chaotic. There are at least 85 million combinations of things you can get with $10. I'm sure there's some elaborate mathematical equation that could calculate the exponential degree of chaos, but I haven't had enough coffee to go there. After a good, long while, everybody got something that made them happy. I even replaced my crushed glasses with another styling pair of $4 shades.

Nothing but the best, baby.

Added bonus, they had paper lanterns for sale, so we finally took the orange and black ones down from Halloween and put up some new colors.

Hopefully, these aren't up for six months, too.

I'm always a little traumatized when we make a Five Below trip, but everyone gets something they want and it keeps them quiet for a while afterward. And, thanks to Sophie, we can all take a turn resting our necks in the car.

So manly.

What about you...any places that your kids like to go that make you want to cry?

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Christmas Madness

It's crunch time, people!


Sorry. I felt like that was necessary. The only thing anyone seems to talk about right now is how much they need to get done before Christmas arrives in less than two weeks. There seem to be two camps of people out there. The "I've had all of my gifts purchased and wrapped for weeks" gang and the "how the hell am I going to do the eighty-five thousand things on my list??" posse. If you have a conversation with either group, it tends to leave you feeling a little less than the Christmas spirit. The first bunch will give you a smug smile and boast about the fact that they've been all done for ages. The second bunch will have that panicked look in their eyes and proceed to tell you every single thing they have yet to do.


I am very happily in my own group altogether. Feel free to join me. I am in the "procrastination is the only way I know how to do anything and it doesn't stress me out at all" crowd. Although, I'm not too sure you can call it a crowd. PJ and I are happy to do everything last minute. This is how we roll. We sit down one night and do a bunch of shopping online. Then, we have my in-laws babysit one evening and make a date night of picking up anything that we need to get in the stores. Inevitably, this all happens about a week before Christmas. It's fun and we never have an issue getting it all done. I'm also happy to continue the tradition of staying up until 3 am on Christmas Eve and wrapping everyone's presents while A Christmas Story plays on repeat. I just have to remember to have some yummy snacks on hand so I don't steal Santa's cookies and milk. Goodness knows, the reindeer's carrots don't tempt me at all.


Lately, I have been fielding a new question. (Apparently, people are over the "are they all yours?" question for the moment.) "Have you finished your shopping?" This is where I smile and say, "No. We haven't even started yet." I wish I could properly type the gasp that I get as a response. Even the panicked posse shuts up for a minute. 


I don't love to shop. I also don't like crowds. Add in the wild-eyed lunatics that are out hunting for one last gift - and will happily knock you down or pepper spray you to get it - and I start to lose it altogether. I feel my skin begin to crawl when I drive by the mall and watch the cars slowly stalking anyone who walks through the lot just to get a parking spot. The less time I spend dealing with that, the better for everyone.


So, we bang out our shopping in an evening or two. We make most of our purchases online. Then we sit back and enjoy the festivities without having gone nuts for months in advance. It's fun and it works for us. But, who am I kidding? I don't do anything without procrastinating anyway!

Bring your pepper spray!

Get a good spot!

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