Straight-Away Pull-Down Shorts

This posting is about straight-away pull-down shorts and other fashion tips from a four year old.

When Sam turned four years old, I felt as if a switch was flipped: Sam was newly confident and independent. He was one of the last kids in his pre-school class to turn 4, so he had been anticipating the mile-stone for some time before it happened. On the morning of his birthday he announced that he was bigger, and "I can do that now because I'm four" was heard frequently throughout the day and next month. One of the ways he has been asserting his independence is in his clothing preferences.

A week or so ago, we went on one of our obligatory semiannual suburban shopping trips. This is where we trek to the mall to pick up some staple items that are not available or are just too expensive to buy in the city. About every 6 months or so, we forget how much we hate shopping at a big box retail stores and fighting the crowds at a disorienting mega mall. We accomplish a necessary wardrobe supplement, but end up feeling a bit like we were suckered into wasting our time and money, and violating our ideals.

Anywho, as I took a bathroom break at the mall, Ari and Sam waited for me in the boys' section of the aforementioned big box retail store. Ari later reported to me that while looking longingly at the t-shirts, Sam asked, "when I get bigger, can I wear shirts like that to school?" This desire was not really a surprise to us, as we've been fighting with him for weeks if not months to wear shirts with buttons. But for some reason, this comment caused us to pause, examine the war, and consider surrendering. As Ari declared, "I don't think he's the preppy kid we've been dressing him as."

Once I accepted (and then even had a surge of pride) that my boy would have his own preferences and opinions on fashion, I began to let him choose his own clothes. I've been querying him to try to understand what he likes and why. Here is what I've gathered.

Straight-away pull down shorts. This is truly a comfort and convenience issue. These are shorts with no buttons or snaps or zippers or other closures--just elastic waistband. A few months ago, we went through a short phase of bathroom accidents with Sam. We attributed them to some regression due to the stress of moving, but maybe more relevantly, we discovered that Sam was having so much fun in his daily activities that he just didn't want to take time out for a bathroom break. Once he realized that the time it took to change was even longer than the break and that he "didn't want to hear you talk about it all the time, talking and talking about it every day" we were on the way to some progress. Straight-away pull-down shorts or pants are key to a quick trip to the bathroom. Shorts are preferred even more because "they are easier to jump so high in," referring to his jumpy thing.

No-button shirts. This started out as a comfort and convenience issue as well, but has morphed into an aesthetic. At first buttons proved a pain because they'd sometimes need to be undone while undressing. Or they "didn't feel good." Now, Sam has noticed that his friends all wear t-shirts and they even take pride in the particularly cool ones like those that sport skulls, or characters, or such. I do recall one incident when Sam and I were waiting in a bathroom line at the Children's Museum and some older kids were there (from a camp) and showing off their t-shirts to us and each other. In the way that he does, Sam silently processed this exchange, and I suspect it may have further influenced his opinion on t-shirts. After a mishap this weekend that involved a quick trip into the Army Navy Surplus store for a replacement t-shirt, I quizzed Sam on his preferences. His first choices, in order of preference, are t-shirts with words, with some picture, or with some stripes or color. He begged for permission to wear his cool new shirt to school and today he did so. Sigh.

Well, the wardrobe does make it easier to have impromptu romps in the Seattle Center fountain.