Fads are Crap

I heard the line 'fads are crap' several (at least a million) times as I was growing up... because my parents said it 500,000 times and Jill's said it the other half. That's some of the uh... err... benefits of growing up with only a fence line between you. You get to hear everything twice. At least.

But I am actually a tiny bit thankful that practicality and budget and common sense often erroded any efforts I might have wanted to make towards some idiotic silliness of the 80's and early 90's while my parents were still responsible for what I looked and acted like. I wasn't exactly somebody that wanted all the latest and greatest things either- and even to this day- I'm just someone who wants to stay above the wire of wearing anything ridiculous/boring/hideously outdated and below the wire of wearing anything somebody will compliment you on for being bold or creative or whatever adjective they want to apply.

Joshua's trend endeavors have been minimal. From the age of 3 until he entered a private school with a dress code, wore mis-matched socks. I don't mean brown and black either- I mean Christmas with Halloween and blue stripes paired up with a dinosaur dotted sock. At first it was a little cute and then mortifying and then really, really practical.

It got mortifying when I found out that his socks had garnered the attention of his fellow pre-schoolers and now multiple kids were refusing to match their socks. But it was seriously practical to not have to match socks when doing laundry. And losing one of a pair was never a big deal!


The beloved sock collection... that I was permitted to dispose of under the terms of capturing it in a photo Joshua could keep forever...

I realize a 7-year-old is way different than the teenie tweeny set and the worst is likely well on its way to me. Noah already has some diva status- repeatedly changing his clothes in a day and rejecting selections I've brought home and taking 7 hours to find clothes in the morning. In fact, that is my morning discipline plan when he won't get a move on- "If you don't get out of bed and get going mister, I'll PICK YOUR CLOTHES".

I have to say I was a bit annoyed when Joshua asked for some plaid shorts this summer instead of his standard khaki cargos. Noah the diva already had a stack of plaid shorts but coming from Joshua... this was weird. And when I said I would look the next time I was at Target, I got a funny look and a request for Old Navy. I only exhaled hard once and then faked my smile. I wasn't as aggravated with his slight and even minimal and even reasonable demands as I was with the fact he's just getting too old too fast.

-Sheryl