Last night I took Kyle shopping. Clothes shopping. My god that child is a pain in my ass. Until I realized that he is just like me. And now I have to reconsider the above statement.
Kyle has another band concert tonight. (Although I’m pretty sure we just went to one of these last month) But this time around they aren’t wearing the ‘band shirts’ we had to purchase at the beginning of the year. And may I just point out that there is a new shirt every year! I would be more upset about that if Kyle didn’t out-grow things so quickly. And that is exactly why I am upset about the decision to not wear the band shirts for this concert. I’m almost positive I can explain myself.
For tonight’s performance they are suppose to ‘dress up’. Kyle said black slacks, white shirt, and then he started babbling on about a tie and I proceeded to have a low-grade flashback. Oh yes, we’ve been here before. 3rd grade school concert. He wanted to dress like Chris (aah ain’t that cute) so I took him to the mall. Ended up at Nordstrom’s and bought him a Perry Ellis dress shirt and a silk tie from Italy! I spent big bucks on those items and he only wore them once! I was not about to do that again.
Kyle has just had another one of those pesky growth spurts. I don’t know how or when it happened, but I am looking at him eye-to-eye now. Not cool. The only pair of black pants he has, barely fit. He wore them yesterday for their concert at an assembly, and I’m surprised he could walk or breathe. And he doesn’t have a white shirt. I was going to have to buy him clothes. Clothes he most likely wouldn’t need to wear again until next fall. Which means they won’t fit anymore! I told him there was no way we were going to Nordstom’s again. And he wasn’t getting another tie!
I took him to Kohls. And there was a sale going on. Joy and happiness. Black pants – check. White dress shirt – check (a Men’s Small!). And since everything was on sale, and nothing he owns fits him anymore, I told him to find some shorts. And this is where the fun began.
There were racks upon racks of shorts to choose from. The boy was stalled. “Kyle, what do you like?” “I don’t know.” “These?” “No!” “How about these?” “Ugh, no!” “Well what do you like?” “I don’t know…” Feel free to start banging you head on your desk in sympathy cause we were getting nowhere fast. I quickly figured out the main styles he didn’t like (browns, cargo pockets, anything I would pick) and pulled a gray plaid off a rack – “how about these?” “uh, okay, I guess…” and he reluctantly agreed to try them on and then admit that wearing them would not in fact kill him… Great! One pair down. Let’s get a couple more shall we? Jeez Louise. What an ordeal.
But we finally left with black pants (that may be worn more than once if he gets invited to an extra fancy summer BBQ), a white dress shirt (that should fit for a least a year right?) 4 pairs of shorts, 1 pr swim trunks, 2 polo shirts and another long-sleeve dress shirt (“for when we take him out to a nice dinner!” Oh sure, we’ll get right on that).
The funny thing (or not if you’re me) was later that evening when I was telling Chris about our shopping experience. I said “He can’t tell you what exactly he likes, but he sure as hell knows what he doesn’t like. And I wasn’t even half-way through the sentence when it hit me. oh. my. god. That is me in a nut-shell. Which logically would mean that I am a pain in the ass. And yet, that can’t be right…
Did you hear harps and choruses? That’s what you generally hear with an earth shattering epiphany.
I couldn’t hear the choir of angels over Chris’s laughter. Which was definately ‘at’ me and not ‘with’ me. As the one who has to put up with my dithering, he was none too sympathetic.
Oh my…..you?
A pain in the ass when it comes to shopping for clothes?
Who would have thunk?
Snicker