Way to Miss the Olden Days

[madrobins]

It used to be that I packed the girls for camp--with some consultation. My theory about camp is that the clothes I send should be well used, so it's no tragedy if something gets torn or lost or dirty beyond repair. Sadly, Avocado is now fully engaged in packing for camp, which sounds like it should be the beginning of maturity and a great new world of self-sufficiency, but means, in fact, that she loses things (the top of her brand new bathing suit) and makes selections on the basis of what she wants to be wearing rather than utility. I do not want to force her to be wearing flared jeans when everyone is wearing skinny jeans (13 is hard enough without people sneering at your clothes). On the other hand, I don't particularly want to go out and spend money I don't need to spend, for clothes that will return home trashed. The kid interprets this as "Don't tell me your underwear is too tight because we can't afford to replace it," rather than "Jeez, kid, you should have told me about this when you first noticed, rather than when we have to go out and replace everything else."

Tomorrow morning we go off to Target to replenish the building blocks of human fashion. More than I want to spend, but less than the girl would like. And Goodwill is going to get a whole load of tween's clothing, to gladden the heart of some other fashionista.