Silly Boy!

Background to this story: When Peter outgrows his clothes, we pass them down to my friend Cindi, who has two boys younger than Peter. On the one hand, Peter really enjoys this and likes looking in the boys' closets when we visit and seeing what clothes used to be his. On the other hand, I periodically have to lay down the law when a favorite gets too small, and force him to give it away. We usually have a bag of clothes in Peter's room, and when we discover something that's too small, we fold it up and put it in the bag.

OK, so Cindi was visiting last weekend, so she was going to take the current bag home with her. I remembered that there was a pair of Carolina wind pants in the dirty clothes that are at least 2 inches too short for Peter -- as a matter of fact, they're quickly becoming capris! They were supposed to go last winter, but Peter loves them and wouldn't let them go. Cindi said she didn't mind having to wash them, and I figured that with Peter out of the house, it was a perfect time to sneak the pants out! So they went in the bag, and we went off to the UNC-USC game.

When we got home from the game, Cindi and my other friend Lynn scooted on off to Charlotte. I was puttering around the house, and suddenly noticed the Carolina pants on my sewing box. I thought to myself, "Why on earth did Cindi put these on my sewing box? And now she's forgotten them!" Then I noticed the note: "Please don't give these away -- Peter." The kids had come over with Jeff to get church clothes, and Peter had seen the pants in the bag, pulled them out and hidden them.

All of which would be silly enough on its own. This morning, though, Grace was wearing her "It's my brother's fault!" shirt. The clothes bag has the "I didn't do it!" shirt that Peter had, so I teased Grace and told her she'd have to send her shirt to Cindi's younger son. She agreed, but pouted a bit. At which point her loving brother, the boy who dug out his man-pris and hid them, piped up, "Grace! It's just a shirt for goodness sakes!"