Parenting Pines IN THE

Bye-Bye Blue Jeans

BY AMANDA ODEN

ONCE ALL THE CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS HAVE BEEN BOXED UP and we’ve successfully rung in the New Year (or to be more accurate the Noon Year, because I’m a parent and I’m too tired to stay up until midnight), I start my annual spring cleaning, or The Purge as my husband affectionately calls it. I go through every inch of our house with a cardboard box and a trash bag and single-handedly prevent our family from being featured on an episode of Hoarders . My children like to help with this task by following close behind me and wailing every time I throw out a random happy meal toy or a broken crayon. If you heard them, you’d think I was murdering Blippi in our living room. I tell you, if there’s one thing we know how to do in this family, it’s have fun!

I’m not, by nature, a very sentimental person and I don’t usually have a problem tossing something into the Goodwill donation pile, which is why I was a bit surprised last week when I got really weepy organizing my youngest son’s clothes.

Indy will be turning two in a few days and he also just had a massive growth spurt (so much so they sat in a tote in our garage for a couple years until along came Arlo.

Arlo, our consummate middle child, who embodies every stereotype about the birth order, wore the tiny blue jeans for a time as well.

I remember the day he discovered pockets. Tucking his little filthy hands inside, delighting in all the rocks, twigs, and once, even a live caterpillar, he could tuck inside. It survived another Oden child.

I (the unsentimental mother) called each child upstairs and made them hold the jeans up to their torsos so I could take a quick picture of them and the teensy Levi’s. Then, I put them in the donation box, knowing they were still in great condition, so many other chubby toddlers with wonky legs and wobbly gaits would teeter around gleefully that people sometimes ask me if he and his 4-year-old brother Arlo are twins). Because he sprouted a few inches, seemingly overnight, a lot of his clothes look like he’s Hulked out of them—I’m talking high-water pants and crop top shirts. I figured while I was cleaning out the boys’ closet, I might as well go through Indy’s dresser and pull out all the 12- to 18-month size baby clothes in order to make room for his 2T (and probably 3T given his current growth rate) wardrobe.

That’s when I came across them, the tiniest little Levi’s blue jeans that stopped me in my tracks.

They had originally been my daughter Bowie’s when she was a year old and I remember cuffing the pants for her so she wouldn’t trip as she toddled around unsteady but determined on her chunky baby legs. When I’d dress her in them I’d call her “Jean Genie,” a David Bowie reference, and a nod to her namesake. She wore them at least once a week until we could no longer button and zip them up comfortably and then was a denim treasure trove that made laundry day more interesting and also more challenging than before. When Arlo outgrew the jeans, in 2020, I boxed them up for a Goodwill donation that never transpired because of a pesky global pandemic that halted everything for quite some time.

The blue jeans remained housebound, and thankfully so because they got another lease on life when our quarantine souvenir and the biggest surprise of my life, Indy August, arrived to strut around in them, toddler style.

Indy, the most precocious and mischievous of our brood, hasn’t sat still or behaved since the day he was born (and even on that day, he didn’t do what he was supposed to do). During his stint in the tiny blue jeans, Indy has dived into multiple mud puddles, met Mickey Mouse, run (completely clothed) into the ocean, and has wiped/spilled/smeared every condiment imaginable on said precious pants. The tiny blue jeans have been well worn and have shoving treasures in their pockets. But something made me snatch them back almost immediately after setting them in the donation box. Denim never really goes out of style. What if I have grandkids and they want a little piece of their history?

I was starting to sound like my husband justifying all the records he collects and never plays.

This year (and probably forever) the tiniest little Levi’s are in a box in the attic for safekeeping. They have survived three babies and The Purge, and they are here for the long haul.