New Hats

With all our excess baggage, at least five bags of which contained "winter gear," you'd think we didn't need anything else.  But E is two years older and taller than the last time we lived in cold, so she needed some new warm tights.  S finally heard of an inexpensive store to get such things, so Mommy took E and K on an adventure on the bus to a store called "Stock Center."  Dollar store quality, mostly, just larger items ($10 range), everything from hair dye to luggage.  Basically, if it is made in China for cheap, they (might) carry it.  The small corner of children's winter accessories (needed items) was unhelpfully located next to the (cheap) toy aisles (not needed).  Impossible to get the kids to focus on clothes.  But both sections revealed a lot of stuff made cheap in China for the Japanese market.  How these things ends up in Moscow is one of those globalization-of-trade mysteries (but that is another conversation).   Of course, it being Moscow, what should be cheap made-in-China merchandise actually costs more than you might expect.  Cheaper than European imports, but not as cheap as the quality would suggest.

So yes, we ended up with some stockings that looked about right for E.  But since at the playground (see previous post) E decided that the only hats we had were too small for her, Mommy bought E a new hat.  This is E, posing on the street corner with her new hat and scarf combo.  The hat has snowflake detailing, very cute.  It won't stay white very long.

And since K doesn't like hats, when K found a hat she liked, Mommy bought K a new hat too.  (the second child whose other "new" clothes come from attic boxes...).  The pose was K's idea.

The strings on the cap make it look so European (so S thought), but when a Russian lady was helping K stay warm outside, she tied the strings (so much for fashion).


P.S. to this post--once E tried on all the stockings, we discovered one was too small, others okay, others too big, as in try again next year too big.  They all looked the same size in the store, but not all had a size printed on them.   Caveat emptor.  300 Rubles ($10) is the new dollar store price :-(.  ($1 = about 32 Rubles).