Pay so much for clothes so small. Was that shirt made for me or my doll? Modesty is out the door. . . .

January 12, 2011



I survived my first day of classes for the winter term.

I managed to make it to the right classrooms with right syllabus for the right class.

That's a lot of rights for a woman who had three hours of sleep the night before.

Thanks to my canine compadres.

Em seems to have fared reasonably well, too.

When I picked her up, she was smiling.

But that could have been because she was leaving forced confinement.

Or because I had picked her up from the mall, and she had engaged in more teenage consumption.

Her latest fashion fetish is cardigans.

I don't ask.

I don't care too much about what she buys so long as it fits, it covers all the necessary parts, and there are no vulgar sayings stretched across her chest and/or butt

Because a shopping Em is a happy Em.

Shopping: the sure fire pick me up.

At some point, she may need therapy to address "buying-things-makes-me-happy" but I'll worry about that tomorrow.

Or, dare I think, that perhaps the smile on her face was because she was happy to see me???????

So many reasons for a smiling Bunny.

I'm just happy she was smiling.

Cause the alternative is so much more to have to work through.






I'm just happy that the kids are old enough to buy their own clothes.

Without any intervention on my part.

Clothes shopping with or for the kids was always dreaded.

What sane woman would look forward to taking three impatient children to the mall in an attempt to procure clothing that will fit, is affordable, and durable enough to endure the trials of small, active children?

Inevitably, I was on my own, as none of my friends or family possessed the intestinal fortitude necessary to withstand the trauma of inserting child into clothing to assess acceptable fitage.

Made me long for the days of those cardboard dolls I would get a Christmas, where dressing them consisted on punching out the clothes from the table sized book, and affixing them with the tabs provided.

Imagine how much easier clothes shopping for kids (sounds like the name of a garage band) would have been if all I had to do was fold down some tabs.

Granted, there would have been issues with full backside nudity, but the stress and trauma of repeated taking things off and putting them on could have been minimized.

Alas, no such options existed, so off we would go to engage in another exercise in futile compromise as I tried to match clothes to kid.







Keith wasn't too bad.

As long as he was covered, and the clothes were in no way flashy or attention grabbing, he was usually okay.

He never was a sequins or diamante cluster kind of guy.

There was that one phase where he insisted on wearing all of his underwear backwards because when he went to the bathroom, he wanted to see the superhero gracing his undies for that day.

Apparently, this was more challenging if Spiderman was covering his butt.

I always wondered if it was uncomfortable.

Em, too, was quasi-reasonable, although she was always very clear about what she wanted, what color it had to be, and that, like her brother, there be nothing on the front of anything that was attention grabbing.

She was fussy and stubborn.

I dangerous combination.

There was the year where she wore a bandana over her hair every. single. day. as the result of a hair cut she had insisted on, and then, upon seeing the results, burst into tears.

Nothing was wrong with the hair cut.

She looked like her beautiful self.

But, she was one unhappy child.

Hence, each morning. after getting herself dressed, she would put her kerchief on her head and of she'd go.

She looked like a farm woman in a western. 

I half expected John Wayne to come to the house asking if the "l'il lady was ready to get to school."

Most mornings I wished someone would have come for them.

Even if it was the racist John Wayne.






And of course, there was Meredyth.

From an early age, like birth, Meredyth has considered me to be nothing short of intellectually challenged when it came to clothing.

Even at 5, she would look at me after I had dressed for work and inquire, "You're wearing THAT to work?"

Now, there may have been times when such inquires were warranted.

But not from a 5 year old.

Always impressed by what she saw on television, Mer wanted nothing more than to look like the kids on YTV.

Okay.

I can live with that.

But when it came to looking like what she saw on MuchMusic, that was another story.

One of my most oft used phrases with Mer, other than, "I don't want to know" was, 

Mer! Pants up! Shirt down!

That child wanted to world to know what she had.

Whether she had anything or not.

Shopping was such a battle it got to the point where we would go into a store, I would find some young, unsuspecting store employee who was only paid minimum wage, and say to her,

"She is 12. She can spend this much money. Nothing can show any parts of her body other than her head, neck and arms."

And then I would take Keith and Em shopping.

Now, if I don't like what she's wearing, and thankfully, that is a rare occurrence, I just keep. my. mouth. shut.

Except for last Friday when she was flashing the clients that the Community Kitchen.

The result of an "oh-my-gawd-Mum-and-Stephen-are-here-so-I-grabbed-the-first-thing-I-could-find-from-the-floor-and-left" moment.

At least that's what she said.






Clothing was always an issue for me.

That's the way life is when you're the fat kid.

Christmas was always a bit like opening one of those surprise bags you'd get from convenience stores.

I never knew what my parents had picked for me.

But I knew I wouldn't like it.

Which accounts for my approach to clothes shopping with the kids.

The intense need, desire, craving to avoid the "I don't like it."

What really disturbs me now is what I see when I go to work, or the mall, or anywhere for that matter.

Beautiful young women who are not Kate Moss sizes wear clothing that is so obviously too small for them.

And which leave them looking like beer-bellied men.

I saw such a girl the other day, when I was driving to the grocery store.

Lovely girl.

Long, thick hair.

Beautiful smile.

And a neon yellow shirt stretched so tightly across her middle I could tell she had an innie and not an outie.

Covering her bottom, a pair of pants so tight that if she had bent down, they would have split, revealing her backside to anyone driving on Dundonald at that moment.

I don't get it.

The obsession to wear clothes that are too small.

Creating this bulge at the middle.

My kids refer to it as a "muffin top."

I could care less about your size.

Because I'm certainly in no position to critique weight, size or fashion sense.

But it just seems to me that wearing clothes that are the right size for you is just common sense.

So, all the young women out there wearing clothes too small for you,

STOP.

It's unnecessary.

Be happy with who you are.

And if you're not, do something to change it.

But at the very least, stop showing me your bellybuttons through your shirt.

Or I'll show you mine.

The Grand Canyon.




Title Lyric: Clothes by Barlow Girl