Last week, Little Seymour Number Two had to ask her teacher if she could put on her P.E. trainers in class, as her shoes were letting in water.
Mortifying.
On Wednesday, one of Number One’s friends pointed out that her school shirt was grey.
How embarrassing!
Every morning recently, Boy Seymour has had a mini meltdown about the trousers I have lovingly laid out for him – the ones that he says make him look fat.
?
And socks. Oh, the trouble with socks! The various sock combinations that have been worn to school recently are laughable: white over striped, odd pairs, three pairs, welly boots socks that have also been slept in – you name it. Oh, and the sock of the moment – the plain black ones that are necessary because your cheap shoes turn any white ones an embarrassingly filthy shade of charcoal – and your feet, too.
So, a shopping trip was necessary. For socks, and shirts and trousers and shoes. After I had conjured up some money out of thin air, that is…
We tried M&S. They’re a bit pricey! As we left the shop, baffled at how they can charge £36 for a pair of shoes that are no better than they should be, Boy Seymour decided to behave like a knob on the escalator. I tried to tell him not to ride it like he was skiing… I wanted to let him know that somehow, an old lady had forged her way in between him and me on the moving staircase… but he was doing his usual trick of TOTALLY F^@K!NG IGNORING ME.
So I waited until the old lady tapped him on the shoulder as he was about to “ski” backwards into her, and embarrassed him into a state of compliance when he realised she was not I. The idiot.
We had a stroke of luck, though. Fresh from the disappointment of M&S shoes that you have to fit yourself and still pay through the nose for, we happened upon a sale rail in the shoe shop of all shoe shops – Clarks . Properly made, leather shoes, at bargain prices! Little Seymour Number Two eyed up a black patent pair, which conveniently were just the right size, and only sixteen quid! We bought them quick, before any other bugger could.
Now, by this time, a headache that I had been nursing was getting worse, probably not helped by the fact that at EVERY SINGLE SHOP, I would announce we were leaving, thrice, only to have to depart from the establishment alone. I would wait, tutting, outside the shop in the rain until the blighters deigned to think about where I was, and follow on. They were too busy, squishing squishies in The Works to join me for a full twelve minutes. But I couldn’t face shouting – my sinuses wouldn’t have coped. I ground my teeth and hissed instead.
Off we went, this time to The Cheapo Shop, to argue over sausage rolls and listen to Boy Seymour reading out instructions on the filthy, “bargain” Valentine’s Day frivolities (they really should move these things out of sight – I had to walk away when he began to (semi-innocently) read aloud some forefeit concerning ball licking). I purchased some socks there – time will tell if this is erroneous, for they may indeed turn out to be made of thin air tinged with asbestos.
And thence to Tesco. For white shirts, and maybe more socks. Boy Seymour was warned, before we even touched the escalator, that as he had messed up on one already – not to do it again. But did he listen? Did he fu@k. The resulting evil glare from a passing woman was enough to make me kneel down and lecture my son in that loud, angry, despairing, disappointed and desperate voice reserved for such times when you just wish the world would go away and stop looking at your feral kids, whilst at the same time wanting to make out that you are a responsible parent who doesn’t let a child barge about like a wayward, unsocialised puppy, bumping into people, without trying to point out to him the error of his ways.
By then, my headache was well and truly ingrained, and after a semi-successful mission, we limped home for a quiet time in front of devices.
I still need to find shirts. Number One’s greying collection will have to last her a little longer, as school shirts for adult-sized children are hard to come by. But we found some trousers, and it was all worth while when, this morning, as he dressed in The Freezing Shed, my darling Boy Seymour nodded his approval at the new, slimline school slacks I’d bought him, and declared his undying love for me, forever.
Or at least until his new socks fall apart, that is.
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