Sometimes you do things as a parent that have unintended (and sometimes positive!) consequences. The girls bring home their completed homework in their backpacks after their teacher reviews it. As a result, I am accumulating lots of pages of homework at home. I decided to get a binder for each girl and hole-punch the homework so that I can keep track of it neatly. I figured that at the end of the year, we could take a look back over the completed homework and the girls could see how much they've accomplished and learned. What I didn't expect was that they would enjoy looking through the notebooks now. Today, while they were waiting to leave the house for school, they were very intently studying the notebooks and looking through all of their assignments, thus reinforcing what they are currently learning. Yay! They are very proud of the smiley faces they have gotten from their teacher.

And of course, other times, you do things that don't work out as well. Consider my poorly executed Halloween costume purchase history for 2009:

1. After months and months of discussion that began last October, I confirmed that both girls wanted to be cheerleaders for Halloween.

2. In September, I started searching eBay for cheerleader costumes.

3. I found a cute blue/yellow cheerleader costume, with pom poms, that A swore she wanted. I bought it.

4. Blue/yellow costume arrived and A loved it.

5. I found a cute pink cheerleader costume, with pom poms and a shiny belt, and bought it for M. It arrived. As soon as it arrived, I thought, "A isn't going to want to wear the blue one once she sees M's pink one."

6. A decided she didn't want to wear the blue one once she saw M's pink one.

7. Back to eBay. Found an identical costume to the pink one I bought M, minus pom poms and belt. Bought it.

8. Pink costume arrives. It is way too small. Turns out I got M a medium and A a small, despite the fact that the small is supposed to fit sizes 4-6.

9. Back to eBay. STUPIDLY, I bid on another pink cheerleader costume in small, having paid no attention to the sizes I had already bought.  I remain the only bidder.

So that leaves me with: a pink costume for M that fits, a blue costume for A that fits that she doesn't want to wear, and, assuming I win the one I am bidding on, TWO pink ones for A that don't fit. That means, of course, that I still have to buy YET ANOTHER pink cheerleading costume in a size medium. I have several on the old eBay watch list. Meanwhile, the days are passing and Halloween is right around the corner.

Sometimes I am not that smart.