The one where Old Navy and Target save my behind…

As many of you know, Little J started school on Monday at the school where I used to teach. This made the whole “sending my baby off to real school and out of my control” thing slightly easier. (Notice that I said slightly easier.)

This school requires a pretty basic uniform – blue pants or shorts and a white polo style shirt. I spent four years of my teaching career making sure that the kids in my class were wearing the appropriate pieces of clothing – by far one of the least favorite parts of my job – so you’d think I would have the whole uniform thing down for my own kid, right?

Wrong.

I did know what he was supposed to wear, what I didn’t know was where to get it.

One of the parents had tipped me off that Land’s End was a good place to get uniforms. Since Little J has a tendency to grow inches overnight, I waited until the last possible moment (read end of August) to shop for his clothes. I figured out what size he needed and hopped over to Sears.

Sold out.

No problem, I thought, we have a Land’s End Inlet (their version of an outlet) nearby and if that doesn’t work, there’s always the online store.

Wrong again. Sold out and sold out.

Now I should mention that there were a few other stores with the required style pants, BUT they did not have adjustable waistbands and/or snaps rather than buttons – two major requirements for Little J.

At this point I was beginning to panic. I happened to be in Target and noticed that they had the uniform pants which had both the adjustable waist AND snap closure. I bought the two pairs they had in Little J’s size.

But I knew we would never make it through the year with two pairs of pants. I called one of the other parents in hysterics. “Have you checked Old Navy?” she calmly asked me.

Hadn’t even thought of it. I raced over to Old Navy where I found TONS of uniform pants that met my requirements in all sizes.

So thank you to Target and Old Navy for saving this procrastinating mom from having to send her child to school naked. I am forever grateful and you’ll be seeing me sometime in late June of next year hunting down the back-to-school clothing displays!