inside out socks and hemming pants

Bet you can't guess that today was laundry day! Once again, my mom is going to enjoy this post more than most of you - she used to nag Bryan and I every laundry day to "PLEASE TURN YOUR SOCKS RIGHT SIDE OUT!!!!" and rarely did we follow through... at least, I don't really remember actually thinking to myself, "gee, as I take my socks off, I should make sure they're right side out so that when Mom does laundry, she won't have to do that..." Well, once again, it comes full circle. As I sorted laundry, I know I turned at least 20 socks right side out... nasty, stinky boy socks. And I won't even tell you how many shirts were inside out - though my dryer does a pretty good job of flipping shirts - so if I leave them inside out, they'll come out of the dryer ok. :)

On to part 2 of my title. Today was the 37th day of school (no, I haven't been counting, but apparently they are at school and Noah can tell me when I ask) and for the last week I have been taking out the hems in Noah's pants because, although we just bought them in August, they are already too short. This wouldn't really be a big deal except his school has "campus wear" with nice dress pants and to buy all new pants would cost more than I want to spend since he has only worn pants for a few of the 37 days. So now I have a stack of pants (ok, 4 pair) to hem tonight. But this is not the point of my story... the real point is this: I noticed that Noah's pants were too short about 2 weeks ago and made the decision to attempt to rehem them rather than buy more. The other day, he was wearing black pants with white socks (I'm not even going to go there right now...) and I noticed that his pants were REALLY short - like, rehemming them wasn't going to do the trick. We just measured him the other day and he hasn't grown that much so what's the deal? I've been following the washing/drying instructions! Then I took a closer look - his pants aren't any shorter, he just had rolled them up so there was a cuff. I asked him why he was wearing his pants like that and his response? "I want to be able to see the yellow stripe on my socks." (which is a whole other story... the short version: Noah folds his socks down because on the inside seam there is a yellow thread there and he likes for it to show - I don't ask.)

So the next time you see a little boy walking down the street with "high water" pants, don't think his mother isn't paying attention or that he's growing too fast to keep him in long enough pants, check to see if you can see the yellow stripe on his socks! :)

playdate plans kindergartner style

The other day, Noah jumped off the bus, came running up to me and said, "Mom, Alex invited me to her house to play right now. Can I go?" Hold up! Who's Alex? Where does this Alex girl live? How old is she? Does her mom know about this invite? Noah had most of the answers - Alex is apparently a girl in his class who also rides his bus. She lives near the next bus stop and according to Noah, "in a brown house." Noah was certain her mom knew Noah was invited and we had to go NOW. I convinced him he needed to have a snack, do his homework and of course, practice piano. After all of that, we went in search of Alex's house. Can I just tell you how many brown houses are near the next bus stop?? Needless to say, we were unable to track down Alex's house (despite the fact that Noah wanted to knock on every brown house's door and ask if Alex lived there...) and I convinced him that I would send Alex's mom a note via Alex the next day and go from there. How exactly does one write a note to someone when you don't know a first or last name? Mine went something like this: "Hi Alex's Mom! This is Noah's Mom! ..." Gave her our phone number and address and waited for her call. She did finally call and Alex does NOT live in a brown house - it's actually gray. And though she lives NEAR the next bus stop, it's not on the same street as the bus stop. No wonder our initial search was fruitless. LOL! And to top it all off? Of course her mom had no idea that Noah was invited to their house and because Alex has a little brother named NOAH, every time Alex said, "Mom, I want to play with Noah" she was sent into the next room or outside to play with her brother. :)