Happy Moms!

I was practically skipping as I left Sears today. Why? Because I walked out with two new, free pairs of jeans. And I didn’t steal ’em! So I have two shout-outs today.

The first goes to Sears. They have a Kidvantage program that guarantees if your child wears out his Sears clothes or shoes, they’ll replace them with an item of the the same size and comparable price, no questions asked. Now, my 11-year-old is known the world over as the Destroyer of Jean Knees. He can blow out a perfectly good pair of pants in a single bound (i.e. 1-3 months). After I learned about the Kidvantage program, I bought jeans from Sears in August 2008. DJ just got the first rip in the knee last week. Seven months … that’s a miracle in and of itself! But then, to walk into Sears and just replace them–with no more hassle than it took to find his size and take them to the register: Priceless! Sears, you rock. As long as my kids are kids, Sears has my loyalty.

My other shout out is to my girl Nikki. I found out about Sears’ Kidvantage program because of her blog. And that’s not all! Truth is, I’ve learned many “mommy helpers” from Nikki’s blog entries. It’s so cool that we get to share experiences in this way when I only generally see her once a week at church–and even then it’s in passing! She’s willing to share about the seemingly mundane things that we (women, moms) deal with every day. They’re small things, but they matter in a big way.

The truth is, the advice of moms in the trenches like Nikki is so much more meaningful than some random advertisement or circular. I would never have known about Kidvantage, or Always Infinity, or glutein-free diets, if not for her! And I know there have been times I’ve shared knowledge with other moms, and other moms have shared their knowledge with me. It’s a circle of “mom-tested” dependability that, frankly, good marketers should seek out.

More than that, it’s proof of the beauty of God’s gift of community. So thank you Nikki, and all you other moms who contributed to making me proud to be a mom and a woman and a blogger today!