bts shopping and styles and stuff

Something is wrong with me.  This back to school shopping is ridiculous.  Why is it that I feel the need to buy my kids a wardrobe that is large enough that they technically could have a fresh outfit every single school day for a month, even if I never did laundry?

Forget about the fact that I have bins of hand-me-downs that look like they have never been worn.

I could be a professional shopper.  I am pretty good at it.  And laundry - I am definitely a laundry pro too.

ANYWAY.  I like shopping for Alex.  When he was little, the clothes that were out there for boys were kind of... uncool.  I got a lot of crap for dressing Alex all wrong when he was little.  As if my sister's were the judge and jury on what was cute for a boy.  That powder blue sweat suit was adorable Ali!!  It was from The Children's Place!

These days he lets me pick out all of his stuff.  In fact, he was trying to go through a skater phase (which I was thinking looked really undesirable) when he was going into fifth grade.  He wanted these big fat wide sneakers that were ugly, and trashy t-shirts and weirdly shaped skinny jeans.  I offered him $50 if he would let me dress him every school day for a month.  He hemmed and hawed, tried to get me to up my price, but eventually we agreed on the fifty bucks.  That kid loves money -- he is very easy to bribe.  He did it too.  He wore what I picked out every day, and he looked so darned cute.  I didn't make him look like a nerd at all.  Nice t-shirts or under armour shirts and normal jeans, and normal sneakers.  Sort of the Abercrombie-ish athlete look.  He actually ended up liking that style and still dresses that way going into 8th grade.  He won't let me style his hair, but I am still working on that.

Megan is going through kind of a cheesy clothes phase.  It drives me crazy, because she used to let me dress her so cute.  I know she just wants to fit in with what the other girls are wearing -- she likes to blend in with the crowd - it's just her.  Meg definitely wouldn't go for the $50 bribe, she doesn't care about money at all.  I'm lucky Brooke still pretty much lets me choose her clothes.  She will definitely refuse something she doesn't like though.  I have had to drop many brand new items off at the consignment shop because of her refusals.  She can't stand anything that is snug -- like socks.  Or skinny jeans.  Or tights.  She's a little pain in the neck sometimes, but it could be worse!

Back to school for my crew starts next week.  The kids already have their first day outfits all picked out and ready to go.  The night before the big day, they lay everything on the floor in the shape of a body.  Their big sister started that - it makes me smile thinking about it.

Oh well, I'm sure I am going to hear about this long-winded and boring post about clothes from my lame sisters.  Sometimes it is not good to have them on the email distribution list.