Clothing Boys

Here’s my excuse for being late to post today: I’ve been consumed by trying to find something for the boys to wear for Easter.

Everywhere you turn right now, the stores are packed with frilly dresses in all manner of adorable ruffles and pastels and prints and solids and if you’re dressing a girl, you’re probably in heaven. If you’re trying to dress two little boys us, you’re probably as miserable as I am. The options seem to be fake vest/shirt combos with matching cheap-looking elastic waist pants or full-up suits.

I’m not opposed to the vest thing – I just wish I could find more varieties where the vests were actual separate entities rather than faux-fronts to the shirt. Also I wish they came with dress pants that were useful, or, barring that, that you could get a shirt and vest separate without the cheap pants. I’d love to get the boys suits, but so far I haven’t seen them available for less than $100, and I’m just not spending that on something they’ll outgrow before they get a chance to wear them again.

Throw in the fact that I’d really love for my size 7 six-year-old and my 2/3T 2 year old to match and, well…it’s been entirely too much shopping for someone who derives absolutely no joy from wandering around stores looking at clothes.

I did, finally, find two mostly-matching button down shirts that came with coordinating ties (they don’t perfectly match, but they’re close enough to look cute without looking like I just didn’t notice they weren’t the same). They’ve both got black slacks. So…it’ll do.

Why do I care? I’m not sure. Our church meets in a high school on Easter Sunday so that the pastor can do only 2 services instead of 4. And our church is crazy casual anyway. There are a few people who dress up on Easter, but not many. But I was raised that you dressed up for Easter – no matter what. We got new dresses (my sister and I usually matched) and daddy got all the girls an orchid wrist corsage to wear. We even, often, got hats. Easter is just supposed to be a dress-up occasion in my mind and I can’t seem to shake it.

Plus, there’s something to be said for having all my boys looking sharp. It does my heart good.

Are you a “dress up for Easter” person? (Do you dress up for church every week? I kind of miss those days.) Or do you fall somewhere in between?