Last weekend I had the first "Sunday dinner at Gigi's" in way too long. It felt good to return to one of my favorite things, and it was actually quite tasty (except for carving the pork roast a tad too early which made it a little dry by the time we ate - boo). The next day I offered the leftovers to Shannah for their dinner but forgot to include the rolls, rendering it not so much a full meal deal. So of course I delivered said rolls, whereupon I found out Berkley had gone home with Savannah after school. This conveniently allowed Grayson to plea bargain for getting out of the house himself and going out with me for dinner.
On the way he showed me where his "favorite" jeans had split at the knees and were now tattered and frayed... just the way boys like them. The school dress code mandates other ideas, however, which his teacher reminded him of earlier that day. So naturally I did what any good grandmother would do. I promptly made an illegal u-turn and whipped into the local fabric store, knowing I had just enough time to save this poor child and his favorite jeans from the wrath of a too-strict dress code, an out-of-touch teacher and a glaring-eyed principle. (Boys can be dramatic, too.) Our quiet dinner out was reduced to driving through Arby's, and patching the jeans now became the ultimate goal.
Now it's not often a 10 year old boy likes to go to the fabric store, but this is the second or third time I've had Gray in one, and his creative little self actually likes it! The last time we were there we bought NFL Colts fabric to make him a shirt for some crazy fun day for spirit week at his school. I will tell you he had a million and one ideas of how this simple jersey should be designed. We had cottons and quilteds and nylons and prints and solids and all kinds of goodies at the cutting table. So of course, finding just the right denim for knee patches would be equally thrilling. We settled on the perfect color and weight denim, but would also back it with a padding for strength. His idea, of course!
The patching went off without a hitch. We decided on patching from underneath to leave the cool factor of the frayed split on the outside. This led to a discussion of whether this would meet the expected standard of the dress code, the old "intent of the law" discussion. Was it the actual split with knees showing they objected to, or the raggedy fray? It mattered because we were leaving the raggedy fray (though we did clip off the best part of any denim frayness - the uber cool white strings.) I wanted to be a hip Grandma, but I sure didn't want to get the kid in trouble! During the discussion he showed his too-old-for-his-age sense of humor (which he inherited from his Mother and his Papaw), when he regretted not thinking to buy skin-colored fabric to patch underneath the split. Hilarious. Risky, but hilarious.
It was a cherished one-on-one evening just patching his favorite jeans, eating Arby's (I told him it would be broccoli next time), and pouring what love I could into my favorite fourth-grader's heart. I also got him home an hour early, and left him with one final teachable moment about building curfew trust with his parents for those future requests to party with his high-school buddies. You know, those Bible Study parties. Love that boy!
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