Green Day

Every few Saturdays, I go through the "future clothing" bin, and discover an armful of new duds Oliver now fits into. Today I pulled out a new pair of green sweatpants, a pretentious pair of green sweatpants that say "Baby Gap Phys Ed." Why is it that I walk past the stink of over-cologned Ambercrombie & Fitch and swear that I will never take Oliver shopping there when he is 14, but don't hesitate to put him into stylish fancy pants now? Fancy pants, mind you, that he will spit-up on, pee through, and fart in. Whatever. I was excited about the pants, and dressed him all in green, obnoxiously down to his pacifier. We were, after all, going to spend the afternoon at Centennial Lakes, in the grass. It's a cloudless day, all perfectly mild and April. A green day.

Before our afternoon in the sun, we went shopping at Southdale, where I dropped some cash on a new hat and sunglasses. Ahem, they were from Baby Gap, and I did have to walk past Ambercrombie to get there. I gave it a scowl of disdain on my way past and told Oliver that he would never be shopping there. Then I put my nose in the air and confidently strode through the doors of the Gap.

Oliver wore his pretentious hat for a total of about 5 minutes. He gave me a flirty smile, placed a little hand on either side of the brim as if he was posing for a Baby Ambercrombie photo shoot, then swiftly removed it from his blonde little head. This game, which I now understand as not a game at all but a new phase of not liking to wear hats, was replicated with the shades. Maybe I should have skipped the shopping.

My Dad stopped by and joined us to teach Oliver about birds. He mocked the tweeting with his musical whistling. When the birds sang their song, my Dad said, "listen Ollie, do you hear all of the other Grandpas in the trees?"