Don’t Tell Me What to Wear!
It’s fall. It’s 42 degrees outside in the morning. Dylan is wearing shorts. I should know better by now than to open my mouth, but I’m cold inside and I just can’t keep quiet.
“Wear pants,” I say.
“I don’t have any pants,” he says. We open his drawer. There are two pairs of pants.
I say, “There are pants. Wear them.”
“These ones are too long,” he whines, “and these are my P.E. pants.”
“Those ones are not too long – you tried them on last week.”
“I just don’t want to wear them,” Dylan says.
“Then wear your P.E. pants,” I say. I paid $30 for those sweatpants and he has worn them exactly once – and not to P.E.
Dylan says, “Then everyone will say, why are you wearing your P.E. pants to school?”
I say, “You can tell them you are wearing them because you don’t have any other clean pants!”
He puts on the ones that are too long. “They’re too tight,” he moans. “I just really want to wear shorts today.”
This discourse goes on for a while. Finally, frustrated beyond my capacity to NOT YELL – which I am still trying not to do – I say, “Fine, Dylan, wear shorts. Freeze to death. I don’t care.”
(I am so pleasant when I don’t get my way.)
And today, I will do laundry and go shopping, so that he has at least 10 pairs of pants in his drawer at all times. His P.E. pants will sit there until the end of time, and he’ll never wear them for P.E. or otherwise.
Five minutes later, Dylan sits down to breakfast in his shorts. “Thanks for breakfast, Mom,” he says.
He is serious. He is sweet and kind and caring. He thanked me for making his breakfast.
All is well with the world.