Rewarding & Frustrating
First the good part - rewarding. Friday, Sherie and I tiled the bathroom floor of her new shop. It looks wonderful. The walls were a bit off (it's a very old building), so she laid out a square in the middle and after tiling that, we did a mosaic around all the outside edge to distract from the wall. Every day brings her a little bit closer to opening day and I'm very excited for her.
Saturday was a lesson in frustration. The only chore more despised than the twice yearly "changing of the seasonal clothes" is buying clothes for the kids. There is nothing fun about taking them all along and trying to fit them with jeans.
But alas, since everyone has grown in the past year - except Wes - last years jeans just were not going to cut it. So I spent several hours shopping for Jacob and Carly's jeans and brought home 13 pairs in various sizes for them to try on. I based my buying on the sizes they wore last year. Well, obviously that was stupid, since not one of them fit.
Then, not only did I have to return all of those - I had to buy more. After dinner, I took them to town with me to do just that. Miraculously, the first arm load I carried into the dressing room for Carly resulted in success. There was much cheering.
Then began our evening of trying not to bang my head against anything. I could already hear the steady sound of thudding from the other frustrated mothers lining the dressing room hallway. We all seemed to be at that point where our sons where too old for us to go into the MENS dressing room and the boys were too old to go into the LADIES dressing room, so we were stuck in the abyss outside saying things over and over and over and over like, "Well, do you have them on yet? Are you changed yet? What are you doing?" and only getting grunts and giggles in return.
One poor mom was about to lose it though because her son was the cause of the giggles. He had obviously grown a LOT since last year and rather than accept that fact, she was intent on him wearing the same size he wore last year. This resulted in him not being able to get hardly any shirts down over his body, so he was going through the dressing room with his arms stuck up over his head and the shirt only about down to his chest. He was bouncing off things like a pinball machine and loving every minute of it. On the off chance he could get his arms down, he looked like a stuff sausage. He was quite the entertainment of the dressing room for the boys - not so much for his mom. I can't tell you how many threats of bodily harm I heard, but there were many.
Anyway, back to trying to fit Jacob. At J C Penney alone, I was able to feel better about not being able to fit him with him there. Their husky sizes in waist sizes varied 4 inches in size 10s - depending on the brand. 4 inches. That is just dumb. How is anyone supposed to be able to just go buy a pair of jeans for their kid?
At Kohls, their Sonoma brand was just as unpredictable. Whereas the carpenter jeans slid right on him, the 5 pocket jeans in the exact same size where in no way going to button. There was a difference in the waist of about 3 inches
This is what I ended up with after what seemed like a month of trying on.
Saturday was a lesson in frustration. The only chore more despised than the twice yearly "changing of the seasonal clothes" is buying clothes for the kids. There is nothing fun about taking them all along and trying to fit them with jeans.
But alas, since everyone has grown in the past year - except Wes - last years jeans just were not going to cut it. So I spent several hours shopping for Jacob and Carly's jeans and brought home 13 pairs in various sizes for them to try on. I based my buying on the sizes they wore last year. Well, obviously that was stupid, since not one of them fit.
Then, not only did I have to return all of those - I had to buy more. After dinner, I took them to town with me to do just that. Miraculously, the first arm load I carried into the dressing room for Carly resulted in success. There was much cheering.
Then began our evening of trying not to bang my head against anything. I could already hear the steady sound of thudding from the other frustrated mothers lining the dressing room hallway. We all seemed to be at that point where our sons where too old for us to go into the MENS dressing room and the boys were too old to go into the LADIES dressing room, so we were stuck in the abyss outside saying things over and over and over and over like, "Well, do you have them on yet? Are you changed yet? What are you doing?" and only getting grunts and giggles in return.
One poor mom was about to lose it though because her son was the cause of the giggles. He had obviously grown a LOT since last year and rather than accept that fact, she was intent on him wearing the same size he wore last year. This resulted in him not being able to get hardly any shirts down over his body, so he was going through the dressing room with his arms stuck up over his head and the shirt only about down to his chest. He was bouncing off things like a pinball machine and loving every minute of it. On the off chance he could get his arms down, he looked like a stuff sausage. He was quite the entertainment of the dressing room for the boys - not so much for his mom. I can't tell you how many threats of bodily harm I heard, but there were many.
Anyway, back to trying to fit Jacob. At J C Penney alone, I was able to feel better about not being able to fit him with him there. Their husky sizes in waist sizes varied 4 inches in size 10s - depending on the brand. 4 inches. That is just dumb. How is anyone supposed to be able to just go buy a pair of jeans for their kid?
At Kohls, their Sonoma brand was just as unpredictable. Whereas the carpenter jeans slid right on him, the 5 pocket jeans in the exact same size where in no way going to button. There was a difference in the waist of about 3 inches
This is what I ended up with after what seemed like a month of trying on.
Do you see much difference? Well, you should because they are three different sizes. An 8, a 10 and a 12. The 14s also fit him, but I would have had to have them hemmed up.
Don't even get me started on shirts for Carly - that's a whole 'nother post.
Don't even get me started on shirts for Carly - that's a whole 'nother post.
