All four of my kids need new pants. It’s always this time of year, when every single pair of school pants I have bled money on in August are too short. I have stopped buying clothes for my kids for Christmas because I know that they will have this miraculous growth spurt in February and my efforts will be fruitless.
My older daughters are already over 5’10” and STILL growing, my younger daughter and son are like little giraffes with their skinny little bodies and long, gangly legs. They’ve been wearing high-water pants to school for two months. Sigh. It’s time.
So, yesterday, I made the announcement. “I’m buying pants today!” You should have seen their faces light up… it would break your heart. Now, if it was just Dylan I would not have to gear up and give myself pep talks, because of course he DOES not care what his pants look like. 2 for $17.99 at Kohl’s ~ sold! He’s happy, I’m happy. Done.
The girls are an ENTIRELY different story. Becky and Amy love the Seven jeans, the Express jeans, the Lucky jeans…and they all come in “Long”, praise the little baby Jesus. However, they are SO expensive that the prospect of buying two or more pairs at a time requires some budget crunching and planning. It’s also just agonizing to see my tall, perfectly shaped daughters dissolve into tears because they feel fat. Hi, if you wear a 7 Extra-Long, you are not fat. Period. Ugh!!! If I could go back to my freshman year and slap myself I would.
At age 7, Sarah still has reasonably priced legs. She likes the pink camouflage jeans with the rhinestone belt, and the sparkly jeans with the embroidered cuffs but I can still wrangle those up for a reasonable price on the sale rack and she’s content. She doesn’t have to try them on to see how they make her butt look, either.
After an afternoon of torture and tears, shopping for the longest jeans possible, we had to stop at the grocery store. Sarah and Dylan wanted to go into the play area while the girls and I shopped, and that’s always a good thing. So, I was standing at the play area counter and the childcare lady said to Sarah, “Oh, it looks like it’s your last time in here! Oh, and you too!” She said to Dylan, as they walked through the little door to get inside. I looked at her and said, “Really? Why is that?” She smiled at me and said, “Oh, well they have to be small enough to walk right under the doorway without their heads touching and they both touch.” Okay, I don’t normally go off on strangers, but I was really taken aback. “So, my FIVE year old is banned from the play area because he’s too TALL?” She said, “Well, there have been problems with some of the bigger kids being mean to the smaller kids.” My blood was boiling. I was barely containing myself, well aware that I was about to become extremely unreasonable. “So you’re going to punish the tall kids? Do have any idea how wrong that is? Believe me, tall kids have a hard enough time in their classrooms without having to worry about being BANNED from play areas because of their size! I can see limiting entrance to YOUNGER kids, but SHORT kids??!?” She looked nervous. “Well, you signed the paper…that’s the rules, I’m sorry.” I was fuming. I pointed to Amy, who is 13 and almost 5’11”. “How old do you think she is?” I demanded. No answer. Amy shrank visibly, “She’s 13!” How do you think she would feel if people automatically assumed that she would abuse younger kids because she’s TALL?!” By that time Sarah and Dylan were off playing and having fun and I could tell I was starting to make everyone uncomfortable and it certainly wasn’t going to change the rules.
So I huffed off and we did our shopping, came home, did the evening. My friend Katelyn was over for dinner and I recounted the incident to her and Jason at the table because I was still pretty fried about it. Katelyn, who is about 5’ tall, said, “Do you have any idea how many rides I didn’t get to go on as a teenager because of MY size? Who wants to be average, anyway!?”
Right. I looked around my dinner table at all the tall people and the wonderful not-tall Katelyn,
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