Indecision

On Saturday Ms. Crazy Preschooler took a shopping trip to Wausau. Shopping trips to Wausau involve two things: going to craft stores and spending several hours at Barnes and Nobles while she plays with the train and I read books. We also usually succumb to the temptation of having a little snack at Barnes and Nobles. She ordered a sugar cookie and I indulged in pumpkin pie cheesecake. I try to make a trip to Wausau during November or December every year to have pumpkin pie cheesecake. It is so delicious.

In one of the craft stores there were winter and Christmas foam stamping cubes in the dollar bin. My mom gave us some similar ones for Halloween and they were a big hit. I told Ms. CP she could choose three different ones out of the five choices to take home. We stood by the dollar bin for fifteen minutes. I had looked at everything in the dollar bin, everything in the shelves nearby, counted the tile squares on the floor . . . it was time to go and she could not decide! We ended up having to do eeny meeny miney moe and she was in TEARS when we had to put two cubes back.

After ten minutes she recovered, and we also took a quick trip into Kohls to look for mittens. She has plenty of playing outside in the snow mittens, but we needed some little magic stretchy gloves that were her size. And we found some. In fact, we found 5 different styles to choose from. You guessed it. Trouble. This time we had to narrow the choices down to just ONE package of mittens. It was torture. She sat on the grungy carpet in the middle of the mitten aisle and spread them all out. She begged to get all of them. She couldn’t bear to put even ONE package back on the rack. I wandered around looking at kids pajamas, hats, tights, and she just got more and more distressed. We decided to walk around the store some more while she thought about her color choice. She tensely followed me around asking which I would choose in different senarios. We went back to the mitten aisle. I waited. I waited. I waited. She started crying. I said, “This is ridiculous!” We ended up leaving the store without any mittens at all and a lot sniffling and snuffeling. I told her if she could tell me specifically which mittens she wanted to get we would go back and get them before we left Wausau. Two stores later (at least an hour and a half) she decided on the purple ones.

It’s not that I don’t understand. Little decisions freeze me up too (strangely big ones don’t as much). So, to the list of undesireable qualities I’ve passed on to my daughter I can now add chronic indecision.