Rockin’ My School Clothes

This is just about the time of year that I would start to think about getting the kids some new clothes, shoes and supplies for school.  By the end of the summer with all of our adventures, their shoes were usually totally wrecked and sometimes they even needed a new lunchbox and backpack since we’d still been using those every day all summer.

Clothing We Chose

Michael can use the bathroom on his own, but undoing a button and zipper in time at this age seemed like too much. Almost every kids clothing store sold elastic waist pants and we used those for him.  We still do, so at some point, I can share some of the adult clothing stores that have elastic waist pants.

Then we picked a variety of tee shirts, which came tagless, or Michael would promptly ask us to cut the tag.  The skill of verbalizing this may have come later, but he could show me the tag from a pretty early age and he made it clear it bothered him.

For shoes, we did comfortable sneakers, crocs and water shoes (keens).  For dressy occasions, we let Michael wear Merrils, which are slip on shoes that have a good grip on the bottom and can pass with khakis and a button down.

For winter, we used long sleeve tee shirts and bought him a vest or a fleece that he could wear for colder days at school. Then, he needed a rain jacket and parka, snow boots and rain boots.  Oh my!

If you’re mentally adding this up, it gets pricey fast.  We used local consignment shops and spent very little on the kids clothes (except for the sneakers which we usually got fitted and bought new). 

Here is my thinking:

We have enough to worry about without stressing that an expensive item of clothing has been ruined. If my son’s polo shirt cost me $3 at the used clothing store, I never even spent one minute worrying when a stain wouldn’t come out…I could just let it go. 

Kids are adorable anyway, no need to deck them out in expensive clothes.