Socks & Underwear

I'm in mundane household mode after an evening of laundry, and I was just mulling a few clothes-related thoughts....

#1. Is it me, or is it universal to go through cycles of plenty and want with regard to underwear? Right now, I have far too many socks. "Too, too much," as Miles would say. And, certainly, I did not purposefully overbuy socks, because I don't find them very interesting to purchase. But... I was just folding laundry, and I don't know where I'll put all the black and brown and gray, thin and ribbed and striped, fuzzy and padded and plush foot hosiery I suddenly possess. And I've still got some summer whites in reserve in a corner of the drawer. How did these socks ever fit into my second-drawer bin in the first place? (Maybe they've never all been clean at once!) But really, some MUST be my husband's! One pair of gray ankle-height running socks, especially, looks like his style. I think he's dumping them on me due to shrinkage. And I KNOW a brown chenille pair came from my mom.

I digress... The point is: I currently have too many socks, but at the same time, I can remember a summer in Colorado when I didn't have enough. For whatever reason, I once ran out of white socks. I'd been wearing sandals for, well, a while (I like to play a game every summer called How Long Can I Keep My Feet Bare?) when I suddenly needed jogging socks. Poof! I had no white ones.

It seems it's either feast or famine in my second dresser drawer, and I just wonder if it's the same for other people? Do more anal folk regulate the comings and goings of their foot covers, so that they always maintain sock equilibrium? Or: Do less anal people fail to notice, and certainly fail to write about it?!

Hmm...

I also seem to remember periods of excess brassieres (Ahh... student loans and Victoria's Secret sales!), then periods of so few go-tos. I really must start tracking these things... A lingerie log, perhaps?

#2. OK, so my second observation (and, whew!, it's taken a long time to get here) is how happy my kid is without any clothes at all. In particular, he likes to shed his toddler "underwear" (disposable training pants which we call Pull-Ups). This has irritated me greatly when I just want him dressed and in bed or dressed and out the door, but all in all, it's very age appropriate and cute. In fact, I witnessed a cute moment tonight, post-bath, that involves no underwear.

M has developed the habit of stripping himself for the bathtub and ceremonially throwing his Pull-Up in the trash. (He often tries to, and sometimes does, get in the tub with socks, so they clearly don't cramp his style so much. One night he actually washed his face with a wet sock after I forgot to give him a washcloth.) M also loves running around the house naked after baths, green hooded towel streaming behind his skinny, long-legged body as he hops and barrels around furniture yelling "Ribbit! Ribbit! I'm a frwag!"

Tonight, after the frog run, he cratered himself inside the folds of a quilt on his bed and agreed to put lotion on -- to prolong putting a Pull-Up on, I'm sure. I left him there, sitting on his towel with a glob of Gerber Lavender Bedtime Lotion in his palms. When I walked back by, unobserved, he was making up a song. Here is what I heard:

"I have a PEE-nis! A PEE-nis! A PEE-nis!"
(Repeated in sing-song rhythm. Then giggling.)
"Look! I have a pee-nis! Where the pee comes out!"

With that discovery under his belt (ha ha!), I can suddenly see why the confines of a Pull-Up take some of the fun out of life.

...Poor kid, with me chronicling every living thing that will most embarrass him later! It could only be worse, I think, if I never wrote anything down. What a tragedy if I failed to chronicle these early, crazy, crushingly sweet days of childhood. Already, I am amazed at the wit and wonder of a precocious, 32-month-old brain!


Dear God, Thanks for every mundane day in the life! Thanks especially for worship and Sundays -- even when my Sabbaths involve a little housework. I am grateful for the chance to be at home, with my family, not just on weekends but every available weekday. Thanks for socks and silly boys and the time and space to express myself here. I love you, Lord! And I lift my voice....
Oh, my soul rejoice....
May this be a sweet, sweet sound in your ear.