The first week of August found me rummaging through the racks at Kohl's trying to find jeans that fit Bean. I had a 30% off coupon so I wasn't going to wait until the tax-free weekend to do her school shopping.
We were lucky and found several pairs of jeans that satisfied both of our requirements. Mine...cheap, cheap and cheaper. Hers baggy and sparklie. I'm no gambler, my money is to hard to come by, so I made Bean try on every single pair BEFORE we bought them, most of them fit and we loaded those up brought and them home, tried them on again [fashion show for dad] and hung them in the closet to await the start of the school year.
Skip forward to last Friday the weather was cool, Bean grabbed a new pair of jeans from her closet and...
Mornings around here tend to be fairly hectic with parents coming and going, dropping off their sleep deprived children. When Bean yelled from her room, "Mom we have a problem!" I thought, "no sh*t? So how's this morning any different from yesterday morning someones always in crisis around here"! What I said out loud was, "I can't come in there right now, I'm trying to get the kids fed, deal with it." After all Bean's not a morning person and pulling mismatched socks from her drawer could be a crisis.
"Seriously mom I need you to come in here now!" This had better be real.
With a big sigh and an eye roll [toward heaven for strength] I make for Bean's room ready to fuss at her for being a pain in the morning...happens I'm not much of a morning person either. There she stands with her NEW jeans pulled up to her waist and the button about two inches from closing!
My first reaction was to question why she couldn't get the button closed...to which I got a "not rocket science mom" look from her and an explanation for the simpleton [me] "they're to small" accompanied by a wave of her hand across the front of her pants, just in case I'm dumb and blind, my gosh she's sassy. I stood there in a stooper...my mind just refused to wrap aroung the idea that she'd outgrown her new jeans in less then a month! I checked the adjustable waistband and it was loose. I checked the size inside the jeans, yep they're the size we bought, guess that rules out jean-switching burglers. Now what?
Since I have all kinds of leisure time in the morning [sarcasm] we went through the rest of the jeans trying to find a pair that fit...this was alot easier when she wasn't so modest. We found two out of the eight pair of jeans [old and new] hanging in her closet that she was able to wear comfortably. Looks like we're off to buy new school jeans, again.
We don't buy tennis shoes during the summer since Bean wears flip-flops the majority of the time. We wait until the sales start at the beginning of the school year then buy her a couple pair. I used to buy her a 'play' pair and a 'school' pair until she outgrew shoes faster then we could afford them last year [really we had to borrow money to buy her shoes at one point]. Now I wait for the Buy one get one half off sales. I buy one pair for her to wear right away and another pair a size larger [so she can grow into them]. I just set them in the bottom of her closet until she needs them.
Bean's been complaining about her NEW school shoes being tight for the last week and I've brushed her off, now I'm checking her shoes...they're to small as well. Thank God we bought her shoes on sale. We bought her the size 8's that fit, then we bought a size 9 [at half price] for her to grow into. Thank you, Thank you God, because I was tempted to buy her two pair that 'fit' so she'd have a play pair and a school pair ...money being what it is, we opted for the next size up instead of play shoes. I'll let someone else keep up with the 'Joneses'.
Gotta go, talk at ya later, T.