Growth Spurts

When I was young (er) *because I like pretending I'm still young..even though I have yogurt in my hair.

Anyways- when I was young, my mom (when she could stand the mess in my bedroom) would make me have a "fashion show" and see what clothes were too small, too ugly, etc and pass them on to my poor younger sister. This always annoyed the living hell out of me as- who really wants to try on every item in their closet and either beg for its redemption or pretend you're faaaar too tall for those ugly purple pants Aunt Rita gave you. I think its the only time in my memory when I wanted to go to bed- just so my mom would give it a rest.

Standing firm with my "I will never do that to MY kids" mantra-- I decided that the shoes and clothing that fit last school year would magically have to fit this year. Wrong. Dead wrong.

Apparently, in the 3 months since school has let out- my kids have each grown 10 feet and 200 pounds.

Or so it seems to me.

Perhaps my mother had a point...a very poorly executed point but- a point nontheless.

I decided to put my daughter through her own "fashion show of torture" where 12 pairs of pants, 4 pair of shorts and 23 shirts ended up in the "too small" box. I looked at that box and felt kind of ill. All the money I spend on that Gym company and that Place company's clothes...all in a box. Never to be used again in this household because- I don't feel like placing my son in therapy for wearing girls clothing or saddling a far younger, potential future sibling with "old" clothing. Do you ever have that "I am making their clothes from burlap sacks from here on out" feeling? With my luck, burlap is expensive and my family would never go through enough potatoes to make that theory cost effective...

The baby, poor baby...who is starting to walk has had his poor little feet smashed into wrong sized shoes all summer long. I took him into Stride Rite in size 3's (thinking they went on easily enough) and came out with 5.5 wides. *Sigh. The saleswoman looked at me like "How did you get these on his feet? With a crowbar?"

I should have looked her straight in the eye and said "No crowbar- Crisco."