The Search for Pants

My son, Eddie, has Marfan's Syndrome, which is a genetic mutation that causes the connective tissues to stretch. This includes the bones and muscles. So, he ends up being very tall and thin for his age.

In practical terms, it means that when I buy him pants, if they are long enough, they are too big at the waist. If I buy to fit the waist, he has high waters. So, whenever I go to a department store, or even places like K-Mart or Target, I search for pants that could fit him.

He also doesn't seem to like jeans. I am not sure yet, but I suspect it's because the texture is too rough. When he was a baby and toddler, with regard to his Asperger's Syndrome, he didn't like me to wash his feet with a washcloth or his body and hates cleaning his ears with Q-tips and trimming his finger and toe nails. So, he has a mild touch sensitivity. This means that now he only likes to wear athletic-type sweat pants. I've tried the twill cotton pants, but they are too "fancy" for him. I have even recently resorted to going to the men's section and getting XS or S track pants, but they are still big at the waist, so I finally attempted to use my little sewing machine (bought new two years ago, but finally took it out of the box). I tried to tighten up the waist on one pair of pants; I got it done, but it's not pretty!

So, yesterday, instead of working in my office (a madhouse on campus - it was Dad's weekend and a home football game), my folks and I ran over to Albany to go to a holiday craft bazaar. Then, we went to the mall and looked around at Old Navy and Target as he needed some brown pants and a green shirt for his Christmas program at school. Then, we went to Kohl's.

I found a forest green shirt for him at Old Navy and then, as luck would have it, saw that Kohl's was carrying skinny Levi's 511's. Hardly anyone sells skinny pants for boys anymore - hmm, wondering if that's a result of the "obesity epidemic" in our country - so I was excited. And, then, as luck would have it, they had the skinny jeans in a chestnut brown color! Yay!

The big test will be later, when I ask Eddie to try his new pants on. If he likes them, I will probably get at least another pair. But they were expensive (at least compared to what I usually spend).

If not . . . the search continues . . .