When Did This Happen?

Tonight was Matthew’s first concert.

My little percussionist had to get all dressed up and I knew this.  Not only did I get a letter in the mail, but I also got an email from the band director with the dress requirements and the location and times.

For whatever reason, I tucked the location and times in my brain but forgot that I needed to go and get Matthew dress pants, dress shirt, tie and a dress shoes.

No, I don’t have any of those things for my child.  He never dresses up, so why would I?

Of course, I say to Matthew the day that I get the letter via email, “Don’t let me forget to go get clothes for you.”

“Can’t I just wear what I wore to Dad’s wedding?” he asks me, knowing that he’s going to have to try on clothes and wants desperately to get out of it.

“Matthew, your Dad’s wedding was two years ago.  I’m thinking you’ve grown since then.”

“Oh.”

But what was I thinking?  He’s a month shy of 12.  He’s not going to remember.

Do you know how many times I was at Wal-Mart between last night and the day that I got the inital email?

At leat four.

And not once did I think to pick up the stuff for him and you know, plan ahead.

That would be so out of character for me.  Wouldn’t want to shock anyone.

Apparently I used my one chance at being on top of things on the Christmas presents.

So, yesterday, while running around, it dawned on me that I needed to get Matthew outfitted for his big night.  We’re in the car on the way home from school and had to turn right around and go back to church, so I decide that I’ll just run out in the morning (this morning) after I drop him off at school.

And so that’s what I did.

It was painless.

I picked up a pair of 18 Husky pants as that’s the size of his jeans.  I grabbed a shirt and tie set, size 18 as that’s the size of his long sleeve shirts.  I glided over to the shoe aisle and grabbed a paid of size 6 dress shoes (on sale, no less) because his sneakers are a 5 1/2.  I even bought him some black socks because my father would have a cow if he knew that I sent my son out in black shoes and white socks.

I had it all right here, ironed when he got home.  I was rather proud of myself.  Easy peasy.

Right?

Wrong.

I picked Matthew up from school and he came home and finished his homework.  The boy and I had a grand idea that we should take him to dinner before the show and so I tell Matthew that we need to leave the house at 5.

At 4:30, Matthew decides to get dressed.  He grabs the clothes and the shoes, rips the tags off and starts to dress.  Now, even though I know something is going to fit, I NEVER take the tag off until I am 100% sure.

Not Matthew.  Didn’t even dawn on him.

And guess what?

The pants are too long, but fit in the waist.  No big.  I’m used to that.  Plus, boys these days are into long pants.

Here comes the shirt.

Uh oh. “Mom, you can see right through it,” he says.

“So put a teeshirt on underneath it.”

The problem is, there’s no extra room for a tee-shirt.  There’s hardly enough room for Matthew in there.

Crap.

“Ok, so we’ll change plans and we’ll go to Wal-Mart and grab another shirt and just eat at Subway.”  I notify the boy in the change of plans.  10 minutes later, the boy is on my porch with 2 white dress shirts, unfortunately too big for Matthew.  But it doesn’t matter because…

The shoes?  The size 6 shoes that were on sale?

Can’t get his foot in them.

“Ok, so we’re going for shoes and a shirt.”

By this point in time, I’m over the edge.  We now have 1 hour and 15 minutes to go purchase a new shirt, new shoes and get to the concert hall.

Oh, didn’t I mention that?  This wasn’t in a school auditorium.  This is held at a concert hall downtown.

It’s a big deal.

I bought tons of cookie dough and crap I didn’t need to support this performance.

At 5:15 when I can’t take anymore, I tell Matthew to put his sneaker (yes, singular, because he was still convinced that he needed his crutches) on and get in the car.

We pick up the boy and I say, “Let’s go to the mall.  There’s a payless there and we can grab a shirt.  The shoes were on the slim picking side when I was at Wal-Mart, plus the mall is on the way and Wal-Mart isn’t.”  And this isn’t like a big mall.  I mean it’s fairly big in size, but it’s never crowded.  It’s a nice mall.

So that’s what we do.

The boy deposits Matthew and I at the front door since it’s pouring down rain and it will take us more time to get to the store since Gimpy’s still hobbling, but when we walk in the mall and his crutches keep slipping out from underneath him because they are wet and it’s slippery, I finally tell him that he doesn’t need the crutches and to walk.  He’s mortified because he’s now walking through the mall, holding crutches, and only has one shoe on.  He swears I didn’t tell him to put on both shoes, but I know that I did.

We get to the shoe store at the same time that Samara and the boy do and guess what?

Matthew is wearing a 6 1/2 wide shoe.

SIX AND A HALF WIDE SHOE.

Do you know where you find that size shoe?

IN THE MEN’S SECTION.

I’m melting down because we have no time to get all this done.  The boy is doing his best to keep everyone happy.  The price tag on the sole pair of 6.5 shoes that they have is almost as much as I paid for everything at Wal-Mart earlier in the day and that’s when I look up and see all the cute little shoes that are 1s and 2s.

“Matthew, just yesterday you were wearing that size shoe,” I said.

“No, I wasn’t.” He was mad.  I don’t blame him.  He handles stress about as well as I do which is not well.

But I go to pay for the shoes and the sucky part?

It’s BOGO days at Payless and I wasn’t even able to be tempted into purchasing a new pair.

Not that I have the money anymore.

So we head across to Belk to get a shirt and we head to the boys section.  I grab a 20 and the boy says, “Why don’t you slip in there and try that on, Matt.”

Guess what?

It didn’t fit.

So, after picking up a tie (for $18) and the boy convincing him to put back the horrible one that he had picked out and select the one that I liked, that was more occassion fitting, we headed downstairs.

TO THE MEN’S SECTION.

I’ve never purchased Men’s dress shirts before and I was so lost.  The boy helped alot but we finally flagged down an associate who measured him and fitted him in a nice, slightly wrinkled, white dress shirt.

FROM THE MEN’S SECTION.

It was more than I could handle.  My baby is buying men’s clothing.

The boy went to pull the car around and I got Matthew dressed in the corner of the women’s section, or at least started to.  I finished in the parking lot of Wendy’s while the boy and Samara went into get us something to eat and when we started toward the concert hall we had 7 minutes to get there.

We, of course, were late.  What else is new?

But we got there and Matthew looked dashing in his shirt and tie.

We found seats and we sat there and watched him play the drums, and the base drum and the bells.

I spent $120 total on clothes today and got to see my son play for 15 minutes.

But it was a good 15 minutes.  When Matthew joined us in the audience as we prepared for the rest of the grades to play he was upset.  “I didn’t play half of the one song.  Someone forgot to put the brakes on the bass drum.”

He was upset.  The bass drum is his favorite to play and that’s the only song that he got to play it.

“There are brakes on drums?”

You learn something new every day.

But as I watched him play, I realized that I was watching my almost 12 year old on that stage.  My almost 12 year old who now decides what to wear and what he deems is cool.  My almost 12 year old who doesn’t want to cut his hair and is starting to have a life of his own.  My almost 12 year old who is starting to get a little lippy and show some tude a little more often.

And all I could think about starting as soon as we walked out of the mall is…

When did this happen?

Until next time…