Adventures in School Shopping.... UGH!

I've accomplished very little in the way of any refurbishing and everything is pretty much put on hold until I finish all the last minute school shopping that I have procrastinated on.  Four of the five with start school Tuesday and as of yesterday morning, I had NA-DA.

I did manage to strip the boxy reddish-orangish nighstands of my Dad's on Thursday - now that was a hot mess.  I think I despise stripping more than I do sanding.  And since the hubs managed to find me a sander that was moldering in his parent's barn, I think stripping will be my all time most-hated chore in the whole process.  Not to mention that inhaling mineral spirits made me sick to my stomach, so I spent 2 hours sleeping it off.  Since then I have bought some liquid sander/deglosser and  I hear through blogland that it makes the job a lot easier.  Fingers crossed on that one, folks!

So, yesterday morning started out with a 9:00 am sports physical for my 12 year old that I had put off all summer.  Have I mentioned I'm a huge procrastinator when it comes to stuff unless I have a deadline?  And if that deadline is off in the murky future somewhere, I tend to space it off and end up running around frantically in the last week before it must be done.  Same with back to school clothes shopping...  And school supply shopping.

I had gotten all the diva's clothes shopping done three weeks ago, but as far as the boys...  Yeah.  Wasn't too excited about THAT.  Its much more fun to go shopping for girl's clothes and between Old Navy and The Children's Place, fun can be affordable.  The boys, eh...  Not so much since they have to wear Under Armor, Nike, Adidas, blah, blah, blah...  Buying their school clothes always gives me a minor myocardial infarction (heart attack).  But the good thing about buying all that stuff is that it lasts and I can hand me down from the oldest all the way through the youngest, so you get four times as much wear out of the stuff than say...  Walmart or Target's clothes.  The wrestler and the football player got very little in the way clothing this year since they have TONS between hand me downs from the basketball player and all the stuff I order through school sports and what they win at tournaments.  However, they both had had their current book bags for 2 years, so it was time to buy them new back packs and I always try to pick them up a couple of shirts/shorts for the first day.

Yesterday I hit the stores with the basketball player and the wrestler.

Oh.  My.  God.  

Who knew that pre-teen boys could be so PICKY???!!!  We got to the FIRST store around 11:00 am.  It always amazing to me that all my children have such different personalities when they all come from the same genetics.  The wrestler is usually so full of movement and talking that sometimes I feel like he sucks the energy from me.  He doesn't mean to be and it isn't in a BAD way, but his energy level is just so high that it feels like he feeds off and expands from any and all energy in a room.  Probably why he's such a good wrestler.  The basketball player on the other-hand is so laid back that it feels like everything he does is in

S....L....O....W.... M.... O.... T.... I.... O.... N....  

Or maybe that's just the age.  Drags his feet to do EVERYTHING.  And when you're trying to get two kids worth of clothes/supply shopping done in a day, well, it about drove this momma nuts.

First, he didn't like anything.  Then, it didn't "feel" right.  I tried to hit all the mark-down places like T.J. Maxx and Gordman's right off the bat because most of the time you can find great stuff there for a reasonable price.  The boy probably tried on 25 pairs of jeans!  In his defense, he's in that in between stage where youth clothing is too small and men's sizes are too big - at least for pants/shorts.  And he goes for that baggy basketball player style, so he wearing men's mediums.  AND to top it all off, he's in that stage that all pre-prubescent males go through (or so I've been told when I've worried to my friends about it) where he's put on some belly fat this summer in preparation for a growth spurt, hopefully sometime in the near future.

So on top of the frustration of not finding any clothes that fit him well, I had to listen to him wail that he's fat - which he's not by no means.  He's just got a lot of baby fat right on his belly.  By the time we'd been to the THIRD store looking for jeans, I threw my hands up and took him to The Buckle, who's jean prices will make you faint.  The poor sales girl probably thought I was nuts, but I was so frazzled at that point that I just wanted to find something (ANYTHING) that would satisfy him so we could wrap it up and call it a day.

So the first thing out of my mouth when we're approached by the salesperson is, "My son needs a size 30/29 pair of jeans.  They can't be too baggy or too tight.  They can't be too long or too short.  They can't fit tight around his thighs.  And they can't cut into his belly or be falling off.  Do you have anything like that?"  LOL!!!

Christine (that was her name), was an absolute God-send!  She automatically set to work pulling jeans in styles/washes that she thought would work.  When he came out in a pair of Reclaimers, I closed my eyes in absolute relief.  Not too short, not too long, not tight in the waist or thighs.  PERFECT!  Except he STILL thought they were too tight in the thighs.  He couldn't MOVE in them.  GRRRRRR!  At that point, I'd had enough with the pickiness, as we had by then been at it for almost 4 hours and he had NO pants!  I came to the conclusion that since during the warm months he wears baggy basketball shorts and in the cold months he always wears slicky pants, all jeans, no matter what, are going to feel tight and restrictive to him.  Because they were by NO MEANS TIGHT!  And better yet, they didn't give me total heart palpitations with a $54.00 price tag.  Not that that is great by any means, but much better than the $80-$100 ones that my husband wears.  Needless to say, I made him get them.  AND I refused to buy him any other pants so he'll HAVE to wear those and get used to them when it gets cooler!  Why not just buy him slicky pants?  Because he can't possibly go around all the time in those things AND we were having the same problem with those.  If they fit in the waist, they were too long.  If they fit in the length, they didn't fit in the waist.

And what I can't figure out is he's NOT FAT!  He's not reed thin like the wrestler, but you'd never look at him and think he was chunky.  Its like all this belly just appeared from no where (with a little help from my mother's southern cooking when he visited her for 2 months this summer).  So, by the time we got his book bag (which he decided he didn't like AFTER we got home, once he saw he's brothers') and his new size 8.5 kicks by Nike, we had been shopping for 6 hours!  And what did he have?  4 shirts, 2 shorts, 1 pair of jeans (I only bought one pair because I'm afraid he'll either 1) Refuse to wear them.  2) Have his growth spurt within the next month and not BE ABLE to wear them.), underwear, socks, and a jacket.  AFTER SIX HOURS!


I try to remind myself that this is a really difficult time for most kids.  You're trying to fit in.  You haven't figured out yet that its more important to be WHO you are and NOT who you want others to THINK you are.  I wouldn't relive my pre-teen and early teenage years over again if you paid me!  And he is by no means a spoiled brat, like this post would suggest.  In fact, he's one of the nicest kids I know and I'm not just saying that because I'm his mom.  So, I know that he's just going through a stage when he wants to look good and dress like his friends.  We all went through that time and now, its his turn.  Kind of makes me tear up at the thought that my little boy is becoming a young man.  I can't believe that my baby is going to junior high!  Where has the time gone?


So, today I'm headed out with the football player who's got confidence in spades.  He knows what he wants and he doesn't really care about what other people think.  Of course, he's not quite 11, so he hasn't hit that stage yet.  But I don't know if he ever will.  He's just one of those kids that is very confident in who he is and I hope that NEVER changes.  


Wish me luck!  Hopefully, today will go a little smoother and I will actually accomplish everything I set out to do today so I can spend tomorrow getting my sawdust on!