Mistake du Jour

Should I have let Aidan wear a too-big (but really cute) skirt to school today?

Sizing clothes for Aidan is very hard—she is a skinny, tall kid. Her waist is a size 5, her leg length is a size 8. Capris look like shorts on her. Long pants look like capris. If I buy skirts that fit her waist they are too short. We prefer modest-lengthed skirts which means a big, baggy waist.

She gathered the excess material and slipped a yellow sparkly bobby pin over the gathers to hold the skirt up. Her shirt hid the bobby pin. This morning it seemed like an ingenious idea and I was impressed by her cleverness. Now it doesn’t seem like such a good idea. All day I have been thinking of the giant lapse of common sense I had this morning when I said “yeah, you can wear that!”

Could today be the day a new “most embarrassing moment” is born in her life story? Someday, when she is sitting in her college dorm room with friends and they are discussing their lives and childhood traumas will she say something like this:

One day, when I was in second grade, I wore a new skirt to school. It was really cute—patchwork calico in pink, blue, and yellow. Really springy. Anyway, it was too big, so I bobby-pinned the material to keep it up. Can you believe my mom thought it was a good idea? Anyway, it was after lunch and I was running on the playground. All of a sudden I crashed to the ground. My skirt was down around my ankles and I got a bloody nose. All the kids started laughing. I pulled up my skirt and ran to the clinic. My skirt had a big rip in it too. I was so sad and embarrassed. It took until we moved halfway around the world for the kids to stop making fun of my Cinderella underwear.

I am hoping when I pick up Aidan from school today her skirt is up, intact, and she doesn’t have Kleenex jammed up her nose.