Fashionista

Mommy took Alex to the mall today. It was high time that Mommy got some new summer clothing, since she practically has none that fits her. After a pleasant stroll to the bus stop, which involved many stops along the way, we hopped on the 60 headed to White Plains to shop at the Galleria.

Our first stop there was Macy's, where Alex was just thrilled to be riding the 'moving stairs' as he first called them. Squealing with glee he was!

I expected Alex to get bored with clothing shopping, so I tried to move as quickly as possible. I was on the hunt for shorts, casual capris and long summer tanks or tees. I grabbed two pair of jean shorts to get a good idea of my current size and Alex was quite patient with that. After establishing my size in Levis, I grabbed a few more shorts and pants. For matching purposes, had grabbed a long tunic top to try on with them. This top was a bold psychadelic floral, mostly in seashore/marine colors. I liked it, actually. It was just beyond my price tolerance, so I hadn't expected to buy it.

Now back in the changing room, Alex started to pay attention to what I was doing. First he told me that my underwear wasn't my underwear. 'Oh?' I said, 'Why isn't this Mommy's underwear?' 'It's red', Alex said, 'Your underwear is white.' That got a chuckle from some woman in a neighboring booth.
Then after I put on the floral tank, Alex told me that the shirt wasn't mine either. I said "No, I haven't bought it yet." "No, no!" he said, "Don't buy it!" I asked why not.

"That's for girls." he said. "Well Mommy is a girl, isn't she?" I asked. "No. Mommy is a woman." Alex declared. "That shirt is for girls."  I then asked him if he meant it was for little girls. "No", he said decisively, with all the certainty of a designer or professional dresser. "Big girls wear that shirt."

That's OK, Alex. It was 46 dollars and I didn't feel like spending that. I went out to look for more shirts. Alex took to pointing out all of the nearby shirts that weren't for me - which was most of them. I picked up a blue and white gauze shirt on sale and asked him if I could wear that one. He looked it up and down and said "Yes. That's Mommy's shirt." All others I looked at got the thumbs down. I asked him what shirts I CAN wear. He tapped my stomach, indicating the shirt I was already wearing. (Long sleeve, brown, jersey knit. No thanks for the summer, kiddo.)

Eventually, I suspected that Alex was vetoing all of the shirts because he wanted to ride the escalator again. I got him to be patient through my bathing suit and cover up shopping. (He was rewarded for that amazing patience with some chocolate covered pretzels and a new "punk car" later on.)

However, after the punk car, a diaper change, some toy browsing, lunch and a cool taxi shaped stroller rental, I set off for H&M now for a bunch of less expensive shirts. I really expected him to be out of patience now and want to be pushed in the cool taxi some more.

Instead, he had more opinions. H&M had a lot of striped light shirts around. I looked a few over. Alex had said something about "That's a man! That's a man!" and I hadn't really been paying attention. Finally he said more loudly, "That's a man shirt, Mommy! Put it back! Put it back!"
I thought maybe it was impatience, but he didn't say it for all of the shirts or for any of the shorts I looked at. I took a striped tee to try on; this one with pale PINK stripes. Indeed, Alex objected in the dressing room.

"That's a MAN shirt Mommy! Take it off!"

He begrudgingly approved of some floral long tanks when I showed him that they weren't AS loud as the other florals he'd nixed. A budding fashionista? Or maybe he just doesn't care to see Mommy in new styles. I'm leaning towards the latter.

Thursday, May 27