One small step for man...

ONE GIANT LEAP FOR JACOB.

Jacob has been “button averse” since he was old enough to let us know of his disdain for any type of button. He cried and cried anytime we put on his church clothes as a very young baby. I wondered aloud how he knew they were church clothes.

One Sunday, when he was finally old enough to speak with multiple words, he told me (through tears) that he didn’t want to wear buttons. I asked him “why” and he said “because I don’t want to go to work!” I think it might have been his first complete sentence.

Now I was shocked. Not only was I shocked because I couldn’t believe he had articulated that, I was also shocked that he had drawn a correlation between shirts with buttons on them and going to work. I told him dad had us covered with the whole work thing, he didn’t need to worry.

Then I realized he was probably associating Bill leaving with the buttons on the shirt. When he saw the buttons, his hero, the man he was named after…and well, the only other guy in the house, left. Now if Bill was a slacker dad who worked all the time and didn’t make time for his children, I’d have felt horrible. But I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that wasn’t the case at all.

Bill is VERY involved in the lives of all his children. He makes special time for each one of them and is truly sacrificial in the amount of time he spends with them. Makes me love him even more when I see how much he treasures his time with them.

So, the button issue was perplexing. On more than one occasion I have called the pediatrician about it. I thought maybe he was OCD on buttons. He would SCREAM at the mere mention of wearing them. He didn’t want to play with kids at his preschool that wore buttons. And once, when I wore a sweater with a giant button on it…he refused to look at me. Covered his eyes and begged me to take it off. And I wondered if it was possible to be OCD on only one thing. Because, as far as I could see, that was it.

We decided to not make a big deal about the button issue. If he didn’t want to wear them, not a problem. We improvised by pairing his FAVORITE suit (read: he wants to wear it EVERY SINGLE SUNDAY) with either a yellow or blue t-shirt. It’s a bit of a Don Johnson - Miami Vice look and I thought he was the bomb.

Recently though, Jacob told me he was “growing up” and thought before long he could “maybe” wear buttons. I tried to contain my excitement. And my first “post announcement” shopping trip? Well, I bought him a Polo shirt. It took a little coaxing, but he put it on and wore it on Easter Sunday. And I thought this was a really big step.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Oh no. He came out with another shocker. He wanted a shirt with buttons all the way down the front AND a tie. (Is there any way to make any of you understand how much this little guy wants to be like his dad?) And my friend Jennifer just so happened to have some bags of clothes (shirts WITH buttons and tie included) that she passed along to us. And today when Jacob came home from school?!? Well he couldn’t wait to don his “office attire”.

And well, words escape me.

I think it’s just about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

You wear it well my son, you wear it well!