Early to bed

We just put William to bed about 45 minutes earlier than usual because he was just impossible. Strangely, he seemed to understand what we were doing, and he didn't fight it. He didn't even object to the fact that we told him we weren't reading any bedtime stories tonight. He just calmly collected his babies, lay down and stuck his little padded bottom in the air, and waited patiently for his daddy to cover him up with the requisite three blankets.

Weird, huh? He's coming down with a bit of a cold, so he may just be a little more worn out than usual. Plus, it's Friday, and we've had a busy week. We've been out of the house every single day for a good part of the day. And today he had school.

I'm pretty tired myself. I actually managed to walk on our treadmill while William roamed around the upstairs before dinner. He played on the floor in front of me for awhile, then he wandered into my room where I had "Sesame Street" playing on the television, and he went back and forth. I even let him get up on the treadmill when I finished so he could "walk" on the treadmill, too. That's Big Fun, in case you didn't know. Maybe that was just enough exercise to wear him out, too.

Oh God. I hope this doesn't mean he'll be up at dawn tomorrow, though.

* * * * *

A random observation, apropos of nothing: Isn't it funny how the dressing room rules change so radically from lower-end stores to higher-end stores?

I mean, at Target (and I dearly love Target, so this is not a slam), they absolutely won't let me go back into a fitting room if I have more than the limit of six items. They make me leave them behind on a rack. I can't take anything else back there with me. And no one will guarantee that the left-behinds will be there when I get back. If there's an inexpensive clothing rapture while I'm in the narrow red closet, well, too bad for me.

And at the low-end teen store Charlotte Russe, where the clothes are practically disposable, the (bored teenaged) salesgirls have to come unlock the rickety little plastic cubicles where you try on clothes, and you have to proffer your clothes so they can rifle through them, count them and give you a number. Same thing at Express, although at least the clothes aren't as see-through. Sometimes the Gap counts your stuff, sometimes not. Their fitting rooms are nicer, though, and you usually get a bench to put all your stuff on.

On up the scale at Ann Taylor, no one cares if you take three items or 33 items back into their dressing rooms. Sometimes you even get a padded chair in your dressing room, which always has a nice large, sometimes triple-paneled, mirror. And then there's Harolds. The salespeople always offer me a cold drink--bottled water or mini cans of Diet Coke or Coke--and then hang the clothes on the sturdy pegs in the fitting rooms which are cordoned off with heavy velvet curtains. Again, no one cares what you have in your arms or if you're violating some number. The larger fitting room area has what's practically a small well-lit runway with a little box at the end in front of a large mirror, so you can see how terrific (or terrible) you look.

I just think it's interesting because I know the lower-end stores do a lot of what they do in an attempt to reduce shoplifting. But it's not like the higher-end stores don't have that problem, too. We had a couple of suspected shoplifters who frequented a Talbot's where I worked in college, and we always had to watch them like hawks. You'd think the higher-end stores would be more rigid, though, since their merchandise costs more--they have more to lose, I guess.

But you know what? Any dressing room works for me when I don't have William in a stroller with me! Ah, the bliss of not having to wedge myself and him into a three-foot-wide fitting room!