Alex Style

I don't usually post here about Alex. He has been busy all summer spending time with his friends. His personal chauffeur, Anthony, will be leaving for college this week, and Alex will really miss him--until he moves into Anthony's old bedroom next month. Alex doesn't usually allow pictures of himself. He is very good at detecting cameras pointed in his direction, even better than Natalie. So, when I told him I wanted to take a picture of his shoes, his face lit up, and I was a little surprised. He even laid them all out for me. These aren't even all of his shoes. He has some running shoes and soccer cleats--"regular shoes" as he put it.

He spends any available money he has on shoes and clothes. He has made some other questionable purchases, but those we won't discuss here. Here is his shoelace collection. He has encouraged his sister to show some personality with colorful shoelaces as well. He also has some colorful belts, socks, and hoodies to match his shoes. Right now he still shares a room with his six-year-old brother, who takes up most of the closet with his clothes, toys, etc. Alex can hardly wait to move into his own room.

As I mentioned yesterday, Anthony still needed some jeans and shoes after our shopping trip yesterday. Alex also asked if I would buy him a pair of shoes. Our first stop at the mall today was Journeys, a shoe store. It was interesting to see how Alex knew exactly what he wanted and what colors would be available. I taught him a few months ago about looking online to see what products are available and at what cost, so he could make his money stretch a little further.

Anthony had no clue what shoe he wanted, only that he wanted a pair like he was wearing--black leather Converse All-Stars. He wandered around in the Journeys shoe store and didn't even pick up any shoes. He looked at pretty much every pair of black sneakers at the Vans shoe store until he found a pair that he liked almost as much as the worn out pair on his feet.

A similar thing happened at JCPenney. Alex went to the table where they had the exact jeans that he wanted. He knew he wanted the Levi's 508 jeans and he knew he wanted the khaki color in 29x30 or 30x30. Anthony did at least know that his jeans were a size 29x32, but he didn't know that the last couple of pairs that I bought him were the Levi's 527. This is the reason why I keep a photo of the last pair of jeans that I bought him on my phone. He also couldn't find his size, but all I did was pick up one pair and the right size was underneath. At least we were able to find him a pair of jeans today. Size 29x32 wasn't readily available, but we got lucky. They didn't have Alex's size in the color he wanted. Yes, they are different, but I love them both. :)

So, one pair of shoes each for Alex and Anthony and one pair of jeans for Anthony. I also bought Alex some bright-colored socks at Foot Locker. I spent a total of $250. Ouch! Patrick also went out just a little while ago and bought Alex some new running shoes and soccer cleats for another $100. It's expensive buying men's clothes and shoes!