Fashionista

Be still my heart. A boy that loves shoes.

My nephew and I went shopping for Christmas today. My vision was to get him and his mother done in one trip . . . buy him an outfit, which he would get to pick out (there seems to be control about his clothes, so the present was really "choice") and then to take pictures of him in the outfit for his mother. Quite the adventure.

I rarely get the chance to take boys shopping. Occasionally a brother . . . once for ring shopping, usually for "what would my wife like" shopping. Never the clothing shopping. So Z. and I went out to lunch, tried some new food, (When trying new food, he only takes the tiniest bit. Not enough to really taste it. Made him try a whole bite. He found out that he likes spinach pie. Add it to the list.) wandered around Gap kids. Clothing stores are "boring". Pants aren't cool. Only jeans are. And jean jackets. And shoes with ties are bad. But fancy leather loafers . . . good. Love the grown up shoes. And you can get to school faster if you don't have to tie your shoes. Oh, and the High School Musical CD and Pirates of the Caribbean II on DVD are on the wish list for Christmas. And D and his mom are painting his bedroom gray and he doesn't like it. And would like a white leather jacket for some reason. At the moment.

Turns out that if you get to pick out stuff, then clothing stores are not so boring. Dressing room was a challenge, if only because there were about 25 people waiting for dressing rooms and you could only bring in five items . . . and he would unbutton every button and then have to re-button after he put in on and then unbutton after he showed it to me. Soon Aunt Emily was standing in the doorway saying "Arms up" and throwing things over his head. He only likes medium wash jeans . . . and seems to understand the concept of labels. We had a chance to really think about our purchases, as the line for the register was to the middle of the store. We did all the math. I pointed out that we could buy three pairs of jeans at Old Navy for the same price as this pair of jeans. Nope. Really want these clothes. The selection? One pair of jeans, medium wash, with the least amount of holes that Abercromie jeans can have, one shirt that looks like what my brother would pick out . . . blue with stripes, and one polo shirt, which was against my better judgement because it is white with brown stripes . . . and little boys (and myself for that matter) . . . they aren't so good with white . . . it stains.

Then went to Macy's to look at shoes. Not seriously look at shoes, because he wears a size 7 men's shoe and I just can't get next to paying $100 to put shoes on a 9 year old. I can pay that for an outfit, just not shoes. But then a light from the heavens appeared in the clearance section. Steve Madden black leather loafers, size 8 (close enough, his feet are still growing) for $25. Down from $100. The shoes completed the look and when I looked doubtful, Z. would list all the places he would wear them . . . church . . . Christmas . . . Easter . . . affairs of state . . . dinner with the President . . .

So new shoes were purchased. It kinda looks like he's wearing his dad's shoes, but it works for him. So we went home and tried to "re-gel" his hair but his parents weren't home. So he worked on his hair in the Starbucks bathroom and we took lots of pictures. Black and white. Very Abercromie. Lots of attitude, due to the cool new shoes. The best are in front of this rusted iron gate. He was very afraid that I was going to run out of film. "It's digital. I won't run out of film." So out of the 75 or so shots that I took throughout the day, I should have 5 really good ones to print up and frame for his mother. I kept having to tell him to close his mouth . . . and every time I gave that direction, he would close his eyes first. Made me really glad that I didn't go into professional photography.

I took all the clothes and sadly, the shoes, so I could wrap them. Otherwise, he would have very little to open. When I pointed this out, he made me promise that he could open them a day early (we do all our gifts on Christmas Eve . . . and then just lie about on Christmas day . . . ) so that he could wear the clothes for the Christmas Eve festivities. Fair enough. Have to get those shoes on for the affairs of state before he grows out of them.

And the pics turned out cute.