Search for School Uniforms

We set out Thursday to get Abby's school uniform. This is a first for us so we were really not sure what we were looking for. Money is tight until Kevin gets his first paycheck so Serena located a Goodwill Store in Mahattan and she and the 3 girls set out. The address was 2196 5th Avenue. Serena looked it up on Mapquest and carefully copied down the directions. They started at 11:30 am and stopped at the school to find out exactly what Abby would need. They probably spent 30 minutes, maybe an hour there. They walked from 121st Street to Amsterdam and then down to 125th. From there they went East. This is a very busy street. There were lots of people walking and also just sitting on the sidewalks selling things. There were picures for sale, lots of President Obama and MArtin Luther King, also several stands selling incense, lots of food vendors with their carts. There was a man on every corner handing out advertisements for cell phones or offers to purchase gold jewelry. Serena pushed Lilly in the buggy and the girls kept up and they kept a quick pace. Serena was instructed by the college to keep your head up and maintain eye contact. Don't get out a cell phone or refer to a map or do anything to indicate you are new or distracted. We passed a store that advertised uniforms for 25% off and went in to look. All the stores in this town are very crowded and it was hard to fit the stroller in between the racks of clothes. Serena really wasn't sure what to get and wanted to spend the least amount of money possible, so they decided to keep going in case Goodwill had used uniforms for cheaper. A while later they passed the store the school recommended and again stopped to look. This store was called Lazarus. We bought the tie here because Serena thought it might be more difficult to find. $3.oo Abby has been clear from the beginning that she is NOT wearing a tie, but everyone in the school does. We looked at their selection and then set out again. We were the only white faces on the street. A single woman walking with 3 kids. Someone said "Oh what a nice little family." THis is similar to the movies where the light changes and a hoard of people all cross together. We began to realize that the avenues did not have numbers but names. There was no 7th Avenue or 5th Avenue and Serena had no way of knowing which one Martin Luther King Junior was. They came to Lenox which looked like a busy street so they turned down it and kept going looking for some indication of where they were. The girls were tired and kept saying "We are lost. We are so far from home. Mom doesn't know where we are." After several attempts to hush them Serena finally got face to face and said she did not feel very safe and the girls were just announcing it on the street that they were vulnerable and inviting some one to come up and start trouble. They quit complaining so loudly. At one corner were a bunch of men standing together and Serena was really nervous to pass them. They were supposed to turn down 132nd, but it looked very empty and looked like apartment buildings on either side of the street. They started down it and then Serena got to nervous because the street was empty, very unusual here, there are people everywhere, so they turned around and went back to Lenox. The girls were thrilled to see a Mc Donalds and everyone was exhausted and their feet hurt so we stopped. Serena spent $2 and let each girl get a cheeseburger. There first since leaving Carbondale! They all sat and rested their feet and used Katie's cell phone to look up the map again. It said to turn on 132nd Street and then onto 5th Avenue. It looked like 5th Avenue was the street after Lenox. We set off again and turned onto 132nd and again Serena really was uncomfortable going down it so theyturned around and began the trek home! We were probably within 2 blocks. Everyones feet hurt. Thankfully Lilly slept most of the trip. When we passes the store LAzarus agian Serena asked Abby iof maybe we should just buy the jumper now. Abby wanted to go straight home but no one wanted to have to make the trip again to go back for it so the girls agreed to stop. Abby wanted a skirt and we picked one out in her size. We asked the clerk if there was a place to try it on and she suggested Abby just pull it on over her shorts. So we all squatted down between the racks of clothes and pulled the skirt up and the shorts down and it wouldn't fasten. We tried another one and it also wouldn't fasten. We could not find any bigger sizes so Serena suggested trying the jumper because it would not be gathered at the waist. Thankfully the first one we tried fit and Abby loved it! She spun around in the aisle and modeled it for Katie and Serena. We made our last purchase of $9 and went home as fast as we could. We got home at 3:30pm. According to map quest the route we took is 2 miles and takes 6 minutes by car. It felt like we had walked ALL DAY!!!

I couldn't get the map to copy but you can look it up if you are curious. From 509 West 121st Street NY, NY to 2196 5th Avenue NY, NY. If we ever do this again we will know the street signs do not give the avenue number an important detail.

We still have to get the white blouse and eventually the sox or tights and the shoes.

Thankfully on Friday they could dress casually and Abby remembered that she had a white shirt from Grandma Hickman that will work until we go back and get the blouse.

You just don't know. Perhaps we were perfectly safe but it was Serena's scariest venture yet. We won't be going back down 125th for a while.