Hand Me Downs

Anyone who has seen a picture of Tai in the past 18 months or so is probably familiar with his Favorite Shirt. When he first got it, it was much to big for him, but he wore it sans pants and called it his Fancy Dress. Now it's getting a tad small and, as Tai will tell you, it hurts his ears when we pull it over his head. He's worn it as frequently as possible, year-round, and it's been through the wash so many times the colors are now faded. We've been warning him that it's getting small and he won't be able to go on wearing it forever.

In addition to the Favorite Shirt, Tai is also partial to some of his pajamas. A kid after my own heart, he really enjoys staying in his PJs all day on the weekends and we both have a hard time resisting PJs on sale at Target or Costco. As a result, he's received four new pairs of PJs in the past month or so (sizes 3 and 4T). His PJ drawer was beginning to overflow.

So the other day, when Tai was busy playing downstairs, I went through his drawer and pulled out all the size 2T PJs and decided they now belong to Quynh. (Interestingly enough, they went right into her drawer.....no need to wait until she grows into them. She's already there.)

It occurred to me that I should inform Tai of what I had done before he saw her wearing some of her "new" PJs. I was worried that might cause a melt down along the lines of "hey, those are MY dinosaur pajamas!!" So the other morning at breakfast I showed him a big pile of pajamas and explained that they were getting too small for him so I decided to give them to Quynh.

"All of those?" he asked.

"Yes" I replied and held up each pair so he could see exactly which PJs were being handed down.

"OK. I don't mind that," he informed me.

I started to walk away from the breakfast table, to deposit the PJs in Quynh's room, and he called out, "Oh! Mama! Don't forget to also give Quynhhy my Favorite Shirt because it's getting too small. It hurts my ears."

Love that boy of mine. So, those of you who check out the picasa albums of my kids will soon be spying a whole new generation of Favorite Shirt photos, featuring Quynh. Lucky you.