Retail therapy

My middle guy is now a high school freshman!  (Yikes!)  One of the many new things he’s doing is the high school percussion ensemble.

And what did this mean for me?  Dun dun dun….. shopping with my boy!

He needed a black sports coat, black pants, a white shirt, a black tie, and black dress shoes.  We had the black dress socks covered.

Shopping with him is an interesting experience, even when it is an in-and-out trip.  9/10 times he disappears and I spend more time looking for him than I do what I’m shopping for.  I am not good at measuring and estimating sizes, so I just knew this would take for-EV-er!!! We have to try on half the store!  But I need not have worried- we had a great time!

We went to our local Haggar outlet store. The assistant manager, “Janet,” took one look at my son and guessed his size immediately.  What a time saver!  We quickly found a dress shirts in his size.

My son quickly got into a routine.  He’d go in the dressing room, sing to himself, and take too long his time putting on the clothing.  Then, he would come out, and say, “How do I look?”

He first time he came out of the dressing room, he was wearing a white dress shirt with his blue t-shirt underneath.  I didn’t correct him because I thought this was a good indication of how his dress shirt would fit over his undershirt. We found one on super sale, thanks to Janet.

On to the next item on this list. The first time he came out to model black dress pants, I noticed they looked bulky.  I discovered that he kept his shorts on underneath the pants.  I said, “Sweetie,  you need to take off your shorts, so that we know that you pants fit correctly.”

“But I kept my t-shirt on when I tried on my dress shirt.” (Good generalization!)

“Yes, but you will wear a t-shirt under your dress shirt.  You won’t wear your shorts under your dress pants.”

“Oh, I get it!” he said, as he went back in to the dressing room.

The worker quietly chuckled. She told me she thought he was cute.  I smiled, agreed with her, and tried to wait patiently and not tap my foot too much.

He came out and said, “How do I look?” and it was a perfect fit.  I asked him if he’d like to try a different style, so he could see which was more comfortable.  He was more than happy to do so.

He went back in, put on his regular street clothes, came out of the dressing room, and said, “How do I look?”

Puzzled, I said, “You have your regular clothes on.”

He looked down at his clothes.  “Oh! Never mind!” he exclaimed, and he went back in the dressing room.

We laughed so hard!

We left the store with a black tie (I found one that is machine washable!), black pants, and a white shirt.  We kept shopping until we found everything.  We went to three stores that day==.  Yes, THREE.  Our cousin went with us to the third store.  That’s another blog post.  It was fun!

As I reflected on our day, I realized that our day was truly “retail therapy.”  My son learned about generalization, practiced fine motor skills, and learned how to interact with sales personnel. We worked on manners.  But most of all, we enjoyed one another.  After a very stressful time in our family, that was very therapeutic! I look forward to more days like this as he grows and matures, and that gives me hope!