Charlotte’s First Nordstrom Anniversary Sale

My little shopper.

Don’t laugh. Charlotte’s first Nordstrom Anniversary Sale really is the topic of this blog post. Nordstrom’s Anniversary Sale has always had a very special place in my heart. First, we’re talking about Nordstrom, a department store based in my beloved home-city, Seattle. And it’s been around a whole lot longer than Starbucks. Second, it’s just a spectacular sale. The newest items for fall go on sale in July! That means that you get to wear your fancy new clothes throughout the correct season AND you save money. (If you buy the idea that shopping at Nordstrom saves you money, that is.) Finally, since I was a wee lass of 8 or 9 or 10 years old, this was the sale that launched my back-to-school shopping. Visiting my Auntie Cheryl in Southern California every other year (my brother and I traded summers there), my trip always coincided with the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale. So we’d go. And we’d shop. And it was glorious. During my non-California summers, I’d usually hit the sale with my mom. And again, it was glorious.

Then, when I was around some horrid adolescent age like 13 or so, my mom obtained a Nordstrom credit card for me, adding me to her account. The brilliance of this action was three-fold: (1) There was the coolness factor; (2) I’ve been building good credit, according to Nordstrom, since 1983; and (3) I didn’t pay the bill. My mom did. Now, my parents were the anti-credit card parents. I think I was the only person my freshman year of college without a Visa in my parents’ name. An emergency-use-only credit card? Oh, hell no. But a Nordstrom card? Well, that was different. See, my Nordstrom card had one caveat: My mom had to like everything that I bought with it, or else I’d have to return the purchase. To my credit (pun totally intended), I never abused my Nordstrom card. I was terrified of losing it. I carefully selected each purchase. The result? Mums loved everything I bought with it. Granted, I had fantastic taste (and, thank God, so did she). I never once had to return anything. So now that you have the proper background, you can now appreciate the enormity of yesterday’s event: I took my daughter to the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale for the very first time. We. Had. A. Blast. My darling Charlotte will be 6 months old next week and has entered that golden period in which she exudes sheer delight with every single experience (except for putting on her jammies). My little pumpkin didn’t want to miss a thing. Up in her car seat, which sits atop her stroller, Charlotte had a great view to watch everybody and everything around her. She flashed everyone giant coy grins, and never in my life have I gotten so many comments on my super adorable, super happy baby girl. She was an utter flirt. Fun and games aside, Mama had some serious business to do: I had to buy my first pair of post-pregnancy jeans. The very sweet Nordstrom personnel got me set up in the handicap fitting room, so there was plenty of room for Charlotte’s beast of a stroller plus me. And dork that I am, I asked her opinion on every pair I tried on. Finally, I found some that I really liked and I looked at the size.

“A 25?!” I cried. “Charlotte, thanks to giving you life, you and I both know that I can’t wear a 25.”

Charlotte grinned. “This brand must run large.”

She laughed.

“Should we go with the 26 instead?”

She made a disapproving sound and spit a little.

“So the 25?”

Big grin. Yes, the 25.

“You flatter me, darlin’. And I love you for it.” And so I bought the jeans.

One stop at the women’s lounge to change a diaper later, Charlotte and I were in the children’s department. I swear, my 6-month old has an opinion on her clothes. Yes, I was that super cool mother in the store holding up different things in front of her.

“Do we like the green one?” I asked, holding up a lovely olive green outfit.

Charlotte looked at it contemplatively, considering.

“Or, do we prefer the pink?”

Big smile.

“Okay, pink it is. It looks like they didn’t have the green in your size anyway. Good call.”

And so it went. At one point, Charlotte was behind me as I flipped through a rack of baby clothes. As I turned around to check on her, I found my child grabbing at pairs of toddler jeans that were dangling right at her level. And no, she wasn’t grabbing them and sticking them in her mouth, like she has done with every single other object that she has ever grabbed. No, she was flipping through them, like she was searching for her size. I could not believe it.

“Oh, my goodness,” I said, laughing. “I’m in so much trouble.”

The lady standing next to me started laughing too. Charlotte looked over at us and smiled in her coy-Charlotte way as if to say, Mom? Can I borrow your Nordstrom card?

Needless to say, I bought my daughter some slightly overpriced jeans. But hey, at least they were on sale!

Yes, shopping with a baby means finding your way through racks of clothes that a stroller can fit through, traveling floor-by-floor only via elevator, taking a break to change a diaper, and looking at the clock and realizing your kid needs a bottle before facing the drive home. But this is another reason why I love Nordstrom—the women’s lounge makes it so comfortable to hang out and feed your baby, and hell, even the changing table is padded!

More importantly—and I know this will sound ridiculous, but I don’t really care—I felt like Charlotte and I were starting our own little Nordstrom sale tradition. I mean, I have such, such happy memories of shopping here with my mom and aunt, and yesterday I got a glimpse of getting to introduce a new little girl to the fun.

Oh, and for the record, I eventually did get my own Nordstrom card. In my own name. It was like the end of an era, shredding that well-worn card under my mom’s name . . . .