string mittens

It's "cold" here today. It's quite ridiculous, if you ask me, that this city makes such a to-do over below freezing temps. It's all over the news "frigid cold" "record setting lows" and it's in the 20's. How spoiled are we. To our defense, most people don't own mittens or hats that are used for warmth and not to keep dry. They don't sell snow scrapers and de icer is only sold at speciality auto stores. It's good practice for us though as we prepare to head to the Midwest on Friday. Did you hear me? I said Friday!! In the mean time I'm looking for mittens on a string, like I wore when I was little. Walter has mittens and he likes to play with them but they don't stay on and we are going to lose them. We've only needed them a handful of times but he'll need them more as these record shattering temps are here all week. This quest of string mittens has got me noticing, as I often have, the lack of "plain" children's clothes in general. I have often though of this and taken note that rarely can you find children's clothes/pj's sweatshirts/tshirts that are plain. When Walter was a baby i didn't like to buy him theme clothes because I didn't know what he would or wouldn't like as a child. Maybe he'll favor barbie to trains or ballet to baseball (just because he's a boy doesn't mean he'll like boy things right away). I often just wanted clothes that were not tied to anything but were plain and solid colors or simply striped/detailed. It's also true that girls have many more "plain" options because they can have ruffles, buttons, stripes, checkers, ect... and be gender appropriate. So i buy things when I see them now, plain colors, or things that look fun and different with out being associated to a particular item. OK I'm off my rant. I have 2 Christmas gifts to buy and then I'm D O N E. Can't wait to go home, I want some down time. I wish I worked in a different field, I wish the market weren't down over 30% for the year an that I worked for a company larger than 5 people that is better positioned to handle things like this. I wish a lot of things around my job right now but if wishes were nickles.....