Plaids, Solids, Fedoras, and Handsome

Somewhere along the way, likely within the last few weeks, we entered a new era at my house.  This new era arrived with a swiftness and subtlety I didn’t suspect at all.  It wasn’t until the third week of school that I even knew it had happened. 

Picture day came upon us, and they cared.  Suddenly, it mattered a very great deal to them.

They have become aware of handsome, and it matters to them what they look like.  Unless, of course, it matters to me what they look like, at which point they will insist on stained basketball shorts and stretched out t-shirts with popsicle stains down the front.  So my new modus operandi is to keep my pretty little mouth shut and act like I just don’t care at all what they wear.

T’was the night before Picture Day, and they begged and pleaded their way to the mall. 

There were haircuts.  A certain Beiber-ish son of mine offers side-swept shag photos to his preferred hair dresser, and we must get his hair cut at the same place—and for the same price—where I get my very own adult hair cut.

There was shopping.  And not just shopping, but the voluntary trying on of clothes in a shared dressing room where they implemented a Bro Code of approval.  There was even a fedora involved.

You guys, the whole ordeal lasted so long that I was the one who got grouchy and hungry and irrational.  And that almost never happens. 

I was seriously about to Throw Down on the floor at the mall in a tantrum of grand proportions because I was just so sick of waiting for them to pick out their plaids and solids and cargos. 

Good grief.  A new era is upon us. 

But I do have to admit to my heart’s greatest gladness: this is one handsome era.