L.A. Fashion Week, where L.A. stands for "Leeds, Alabama".

Today Jude wore an entire outfit of new clothes- new clothes that I bought him. Unless you know him, you have no idea what an unnatural feat this is. I mean, I figured when I locked him in the basement and provided him only the clothes that I bought him, he'd break eventually, but I never thought he would just.. wear them.

Now, when I was seven years old FOR PETE'S LOVIN' SAKES I don't even think I looked at what I was wearing. I think I just put stuff on to keep the cold off, you know? Hell, my mom might have still been dressing me, I don't know. I think, once in a while, I might have seen a dress that I liked and showed it to my mom, who would inevitably say, "Oh, we can make that." But besides that, I just didn't give a honk.

Jude, on the other hand, is a SNOB. He is a snob, folks. And it's so completely off-setting, because he's so punk rock, skateboarder, bmx biker, criminal extraordinaire, that you'd sort of assume that he barely thought about what he was wearing, too. But NO. NONONONO. I noticed several years ago that he had favorites in his wardrobe, and would wear dirty clothes over and over again. I finally told him that he had to put on a CLEAN shirt when he got out of the tub, and he had a crying, stomping fit; he then tried to get us to wash the same shirt every night, so he could just put it on again the next morning.

Since Kane and Jude have moved in with us, I often buy them clothes. I mean, you know a boy can put on a new shirt and it will have disintegrated off his body by that evening, so they always need clothes. Anytime I'm at Target or Old Navy I glance through the clearance stuff to see if there is anything in their sizes, and if I find something that (a) is the right size, and (b) looks like something they'd like, I grab it. Kane always thanks me over and over again, and sort of holds it up to himself to show how approving he is. Jude, though, usually looks sort of constipated and then lifts his nose a little higher, shakes his head in the "no" fashion, and walks away. I'm not kidding- that is the routine for "when Buffy brings clothes home". And, people, we like to dress our children in "cool" clothes; it's not like I'm bringing home bonnets and saddle shoes.

So this morning, I went to make sure that Jude was on his way to being ready, and he was wearing a new t-shirt that I bought him last night, new jeans that I bought him a couple of months ago, and new sneakers that he had completely disdained, so much so that I was intending to take them back. And he looked so darned cute, I even told him how darned cute he looked.

Of course, he went on to tell me that the reason he was wearing the new shoes was because his other shoes were "still wet" because they went hunting for crawdads and he went in the lake WITH HIS SHOES ON in 65-degree-weather and, people, 24 hours is just not enough time for Sketchers to dry, okay?

I wonder why his throat was hurting this morning?