Mark is a bit of a fashionista (fashionisto?). He has very strong opinions about what clothes he will and won't wear, and once he's made up his mind, that's it. No amount of begging, cajoling, or threatening will sway him.
For most of the year, it's not a problem. Mark's school requires uniforms, and though he grumbles about it, he does (mostly) adhere to the dress code.
Where we really run into problems are in the off season. Say, winter break, for example.
Mark had a recent growth spurt, and one morning during winter break, he realized none of his pants fit. Well, none of the pants he would wear, anyway, which number exactly two pair. Two pair of skinny jeans, one of which has become too skinny for him to even button. So really, he had one pair of pants, complete with torn knees, to wear for any and all occasions.
He does have eight other pairs of pants he has never worn, and four pairs of pants he wore once but swore he would never wear again. They are all brand-new, brand-name pants that any other boy would simply wear because they were clean and within arm's reach. Mark, clearly, is not one of those boys.
"They just aren't my style," he told me when I offered them up again.
"It's raining," I reminded him. "Are you going to wear shorts and be cold? Is that your style?"
"It's not raining that hard," he told me. "And it's not that cold. I'll wear a big sweatshirt."
And so he did. For the first day. And he shivered for most of it.
The second day, he was a little more creative. He came out of his room wearing his white baseball pants and his Dodgers jersey. He looked a little out of place, but at least the outfit made sense together.
By the third day, he was scraping rock bottom. He came out of his room wearing a t-shirt and his gray baseball pants. The outfit did not match, and worse, it didn't make sense. He just looked kinda...weird. I turned my head so he couldn't see me stifling a laugh.
"Did Mark have a baseball game this morning?" my friend Liz asked when she saw him.
"Nope," I answered. "His skinny jeans are dirty and he wouldn't wear any other pants."
Liz did not stifle her laughter.
By the end of the week, it was getting pretty pathetic. Mark wouldn't give in or give up on the skinny jeans. He even went so far as to do laundry, so he could wear them again. That's right, my 10-year-old son sorted, washed, dried and folded his clothes, just so he could wear that same damned pair of skinny jeans again.
And then the drought ended. Christmas morning came, and with it, new skinny jeans. A pair of black and a pair of purple jeans, in the appropriate sizes. Just for good measure, I bought him two more pairs at the after-Christmas sales. And even my friend Monica bought him a pair for Christmas.
"So he won't have to wear his baseball pants out in public again," she said, as I turned about five shades of red.
And all was right in Mark's world again. He had skinny jeans galore, and he was once again a happy boy. My son no longer looked like a poor little ragamuffin, so I was pretty happy, too.
Right up until yesterday, when he left his room wearing his old, too-small gray skinny jeans. The ones he refused to wear pre-Christmas because they were too tight. Suddenly, he had rekindled his love affair with them, and refused to take them off.
My first instinct was to throw my head back and roar, and scream that this was exactly the type of scenario that will be the death of me yet. To yell that I have seen Mark's future, and it is bleak--in fact, it involves him in a coffin, wearing those very same jeans, with imprints of my hands around his tiny little neck.
But instead of stroking out, I took a deep, calming breath. I explained that the skinny jeans no longer fit, and had been suitably replaced. And then I said if he didn't hand them over to me right then and there, he would suffer a punishment worse than death.
"Really, Mom?" he goaded. "Worse than death?"
"Yup," I answered. "If you don't take them off right now, I will throw out your new purple skinny jeans. You will never see them again."
He gasped--he had just seen the future, too, and it was worse than death.
I walked out of the room with significantly higher blood pressure, but at least I had those damned jeans in my hand, thereby ending the great skinny jean debate.
At least, until the next growth spurt.
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