This Sunday I dragged my kids shopping.

I would like to emphasize how unusual this was: I am not crazy. I do not go shopping with them any more because I treasure my sanity and I dislike turning into a banshee inside the store. My secret banshee identity is reserved for inside the house, away from prying eyes. Thank you very much. I shop online. I shop online for everything, including shoes for everybody. But there was a rumor that it would start snowing on Sunday night. And that it would continue to snow the whole week. (Later I checked online and could not find any evidence of such a rumor even existed. I decided to change my radio alarm clock away from the classic music station because Mozart must have given me that piece of false intel when I was still groggy at 6:45 am on a Sunday morning… I was perhaps extremely susceptible to such intel because of 20 Prospect’s pictures of snow-covered MLPS which is only, after all, 7-hour drive away.)

I was on a mission: Winter jackets. Snow shoes. Snow pants. Gloves. Besides, Gap and Old Navy was having the 30% off everything sales.

Like almost all 7th grade boys, my son does not want to be bothered with his outward appearances. T-shirts. Sweat pants. If I ask him to dress up, he wears jeans. He does not own clothes with collars except his band uniform polo shirt. Don’t get me wrong: this coolness towards fashion, I am pretty sure, saves us a lot of money and I am not complaining.

But there was a sale going on at Old Navy! I practically had to beg him to let me buy him some clothes since Christmas is not far away and I prefer not to have to pay regular price for “emergency good clothes” later. As soon as he granted me the permission, I realized that he has outgrown the Boys’ Department.

We are now in Men’s territory. My son, according to the fashion industry and the arbitrary sizing chart, is now a young man.

A rite of passage. Right inside the dressing room at Old Navy. He is now Mens Size Small.

I am not sure whether he saw this as anything significant, but he clearly was energized by the clothes that I brought into the dressing room: Military-inspired Dress shirts (which by the way was $15 plus 30% off. SCORE!). Zip Pullover Cable-Knit Sweaters.

He looked all of a sudden so grown-up in these men’s clothes and he himself noticed it too. For the first time, I watched him “modeling” in front of the mirror, soaking his new image all in, feeling self-assured, proud, and probably a bit cocky too.

He showed me the latest dance moves. (When did he learn these things?) The pop singer hair flip. Then he did what he called an “ab roll” (Huh?) and I realized that my son actually has a six-pack or at least the sign of it and he clearly has developed some nice biceps. When did this happen? Is this the same picky eater who is able to put on and take off his jeans without unbuttoning first? He topped this all with that famous dance move by MJ. (At this, I had to roll my eyes and tried hard not to laugh while giving him the tsk tsk appropriate amount of disapproving look)

He’s growing up so fast. Noooooo. 12 is still a small number in the scheme of things right? Right?

All of a sudden I regretted ever forcing him to look less like a bum. Looking like a bum is fine by me now, really. I swear!

“Do you really think I look good in this?”

“No you look absolutely awful!” I said with exaggeration.

He laughed. “Good. Could I get these please?”

The new shirts and sweaters are now hanging in his closet away from his day-to-day clothes (t-shirts, sweat pants and jeans) which are crammed into his dresser. I wonder how long before he actually remembers the older him that he had a glimpse of and decides to wear the Men’s Clothes we got him this Sunday.

Update:

One tricky thing about parenting boys during the awkward period (say between 12 and 18?) is that you never know which one you are going to get at any given moment, the boy or the man?

My son is sitting here at the kitchen table doing his math homework. I thought I head him humming, “It’s raining men. Hallelujah!”

“What? Are you singing ‘It’s raining men’?” I chuckled.

“Oh yeah. So that’s it. I thought it says ‘It’s raging mad’…”