At Least I Didn’t Say “I Told You So”

On Christmas Eve, Boo put on his dress pants and we discovered that he was outgrowing them, as ten year old boys tend to do.  They were still ok to wear to church, but it was time for new pants.  Later in the week when he was folding his laundry, he left the pants in the living room

I told him to put them away and he told me that he wanted to give them away now that they were too short.  I asked him to please put them away anyway, since he could still wear them if he needed to, until we could get him some new ones.

As ten year old boys tend to do, he brought the pants to his room, but left them on the floor, where I discovered them several days later, crumpled in a heap, now needing to be ironed.  I gave him a stern lecture and instructed him to put them away. Which is what I told him the first time.  No, I didn’t iron or rewash the pants.

Now here we are, a few weeks later.  My parents are visiting and wanted to take us all out to the brunch at the Officer’s Club after the children’s religious education class.  About 20 minutes before we need to leave to drop them off, Boo comes to me and asks if he should change into a collared shirt and his dress pants before class or after. Of course, I reminded him that his dress pants were a wrinkled mess from lying on his floor.

What ensued next was mind boggling.

He threw such a hissy fit over not having anything nice to wear for brunch.  We recommended that he wear jeans with his collared shirt, tie and dress shoes, but he wouldn’t have it.  We suggested just wearing what he was wearing, since brunch here is not all that dressy.  Nope, wouldn’t hear of it.   He was stomping around and carrying on so much that we needed to point out that if he’d hung the pants up in the first place, he would have them to wear.  Oh, and remember -he felt they were too short to wear anyway.

He stormed off, declaring that he was old enough to stay home alone, so he wasn’t going to brunch.  He said something else about not feeling right about wearing every day jeans with a nice shirt.

When he had left, Philip and I looked at each other and said, “Is he throwing a fit over…clothes?  When did he become so fashion conscious?”  It was pretty darn funny.  I guess we really should have been more sympathetic but honestly, who knew he cared so much about clothes?  This does not bode well for the teen years when he realizes that the ladies care about the fashion.

The lesson here is of course, when mom tells you to do something, you really should do it.  Or risk being known as Fashion Boy from here on out.

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