Why do I try?

For one thing, I should have seen it coming.  I should have looked at my husband and my brothers and my dad and some of my cousins (!) and realized that petite children were not on my horizon. 

I can't remember if it was when Braeden was a toddler and had feet roughly the same shape as cubes or if it was when Mark was a toddler and had feet roughly the same shape as cubes--one of them.  Geri told me that Adam had had feet roughly the same shape as cubes and she had to look long and hard to find him shoes that would work.  She told me by way of empathizing, but I also felt a certain sense of duty.  She had hunted up shoes to fit her baby's blocky feet so I had to do the same.

And I did.

And (thankfully) both boys have more or less reached the shape of feet that shoes are easier to find.

But it's the job of the mother to clothe your children no matter their size and shape.  It's just part of the gig.

I tracked down a source for jeans to cover the increasingly long legs of my first-born.   No one really cares except me though.  There's no one to share in this victory.  Braeden shrugs and pulls on the jeans.  He'd wear jeans that are too short and not even care or notice.  Clothes are a very secondary concern to him.

I decided his sleeves were too short on the white dress shirt he wears to church.  I went to the store with Emma and hunted all over an entire table for a shirt with a small enough neck and long enough sleeves.  I couldn't find one.

We searched a second table and then a third.  Finally, success!  The neck was a little bigger than what I was looking for but I thought it would work.  The sleeves, 36-37, were long enough!  I was proud of my purchase, my conquest of the tables of white dress shirts at JCPenney.

I presented it to Braeden, ironed fresh from the wrinkle release setting in the dryer and ready to go.  He put it on.

Yesterday at church, it was stake conference and we were packed in tight.  He became warm.  We weren't in the meeting 5 minutes when he had his shirt sleeves rolled up above his elbows.

All that time looking for a shirt that would have long enough sleeves, and he had the audacity to roll them up!

No appreciation, I tell you.