Sticks and Stars

Today I scrounged among last spring’s outgrown jackets to find something with which to hold over my five year old until we can make it to our consignment shop this weekend in order to get him a real coat.

Fall, it just snuck up on me! We had such a cold summer that I keep expecting a long warm fall. A week or so ago it was warm and lovely and so I figured I was correct in my expectation, and now that it’s cold and windy and rainy I’m in denial, waiting for my sunny days to come back. And as a result, I send my son to school with no coat, regardless of the weather. Rain clouds? Nah, that’s just morning fog that will burn off by noon! Pouring rain? Nah, it’s just sprinkling, it’ll quit any minute! Wind strong enough to knock over our garbage can? No, that’s probably just the tail wind from a truck driving by!

My eyes were not opened until today, when he came home wearing a jacket belonging to a girl in his class who told him he could wear it as long as he needed. My brain is now full of terrible images of my skinny little five year old huddled and shivering on the playground until his benevolent classmate rescued him with her wooly pink zippered sweatshirt.

So tomorrow he will wear his linty, too short, too tight fleece jacket and Saturday we head to the consignment store.

Thus far I’ve been pretty pleased with being able to get all my boys’ clothes (including shoes!) (but not including underwear — it’s amazing how much hand me down underwear we’ve gotten from parents who bought too soon and by the time potty training was done, they didn’t actually fit — of course, it doesn’t hurt that my kid has such a small butt that 2T-3T undies fit him just fine) from our consignment store, but I may have to give in with regard to pants for my five year old. I snatch up every pair that will ever fit him because they are few and far between as it is, but it seems that no parents are quite ready to give up pants that fit a five year old. Of course, if my five year old’s jeans collection is any indication, I can well believe that the pants have been long destroyed before ever turning vaguely in the direction of the consignment shop. I really need to learn how to patch knees.

I also took the opportunity of today’s enlightenment to poke through the box of waiting 3Ts in my closet to see if I could sufficiently clothe my two year old now that his tshirts are no longer appropriate and his clothes from last year are too short. Luckily for him, we’ve been given four jackets and one really nice, brand new coat, so starting tomorrow, he’ll be warm.

I guess this means I should sew the buttons back onto my own coat. I have noticed it’s been mighty chilly at the bus stop lately.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 25th, 2008 at 11:56 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.