Bond, Jack Bond

We've been blessed this year to be the recipients of quite a few hand-me-downs for our boys. My kids are still at the age where a bag of used clothes passed down from a friend is terribly exciting. So, recently, we got some size 4 clothes for our five-year-old runt, who is actually getting a little belly on him. (Did you know that when you get bumps on your tummy, that means you're getting strong? Jack swears he's developing a six-pack of his own. I can't bring myself to tell him those are just his ribs.)

Included in this bag of gently used clothes were several windsuits or jogging suits or whatever you call the matching pants and jacket sets that make you look like a slightly goofy guy who thinks he's athletic but is really just destined to be in the chess club. (That description actually fits Jack to a tee.) I laid one of these outfits out for Jack one morning for school, hoping he wouldn't choose to add a gold chain and some fake chest hair which would have him looking a whole lot like Uncle Rico from Napolean Dynamite. He was beside himself with joy at the chance to wear his cool new/old clothes to school that day. I'm sure his head was swimming with the thought of all the googly eyes he would get from his girlfriends upon entering his portable classroom. He came swaggering into the living room where I was undoubtedly nursing the baby, since that's what I seem to be doing 85% of the time, and stopped right in front of me.

"Mama?" He says, oozing coolness from his very pores. "Yes?" "Do I look fashioned?" Naturally, I'm a little surprised and tickled by his very serious question. "Yes, of course you look fashioned, Jack." Then he gives the slightest motion toward his jacket collar, which he has turned up, and says, " 'Cause you know some boys do this to be fashioned." Then he turned and walked to the kitchen in all his confident coolness, completely pleased with the fact that he would be making quite the fashion statement in kindergarten that day. He's not known as "fancy" among the five-year-old girl population for nothing.