There are some people who give no significance to socks. Once a year or so they make a quick stop at a local department store and pick up a package of white socks for each of their kids. If white is not available, they grab another relatively neutral color such as light blue or beige, $5 for each pack of 5 pairs. Their children will wear those socks every day, no matter what color outfit they are wearing, until they get worn out, outgrown or lost and another sock-shopping trip is scheduled, about a year later.
Then there are people who take every single outfit they buy for their children and bring it to a fancy hosiery boutique before bringing it home. There they lay out the outfit and 5 or 6 carefully chosen socks to find the best match. After an agonizing 20 minutes, they leave the store with a perfectly coordinated $6 pair of socks for each child.
I have a different philosophy. I like matching socks to clothes, and you'll never see a child of mine wearing light blue socks with a red and navy outfit. On the other hand, I have never paid more than $2 for a pair of socks. I like to buy socks because it indulges my creative side and my desire to have my children dress "just so" without having me splurge on each cute sweater and handsome pair of slacks I find.
So when I shop, I can never pass by the discount boxes outside the fancy hosiery boutiques. I rummage through it, keeping in mind any outfits I had a hard time matching socks to recently, and sometimes I come away with a few cute pairs for a dollar or two each.
The result is a huge pile of socks which have two whole drawers dedicated to their storage.
This isn't even half of the socks my kids own. It's an unsorted pile from the dryer.
A sampling of the colors and styles:
Apparently, Zusha either inherited or picked up on my sock obsession.
A typical morning:
Zusha: I have a dark blue and light blue shirt. I want dark blue and light blue socks.
Me: We only have light blue socks OR dark blue socks.
Zusha: But I have light blue AND dark blue on my shirt.
Me: Ok, your shorts are dark blue to match the dark blue in your shirt and the socks will be light blue to match the light blue. OK?
Zusha: [grudgingly] Yeah.
Me: [holding white shoes with red trim] Zusha, time to put on your shoes.
Zusha: I don't have any red in my clothes. I don't want these shoes. I want light blue and dark blue shoes.
Me: We don't HAVE such shoes. It's either this or your brown sandals.
Zusha sits on the floor on the verge of tears.
Me: [thinking fast] Oh, look at your name tag! It has red letters in it. The red on the shoes is like the red on the tag.
Zusha is satisfied.
The next day:
Zusha: I don't want my name tag. It has red letters and I'm not wearing anything red.
One day I dressed the kids in this sweater:
I put on socks for Gedalya that match the green stripe exactly, but I don't have such socks for Zusha.
Zusha: I also want green socks like the green in the sweater.
Me: We don't have such green socks for you. I'll find you something else.
Zusha was looking on anxiously while I searched for a matching pair. I couldn't let him down with plain white socks! B"H I found perfect socks: white with two stripes on top, one light purple and one dark purple. He laid it to his sweater, saw that it matched, and was satisfied.
On another occasion I dressed them in light blue mock neck sweaters and off white pants. I actually found a pair of light blue socks that are the same exact shade as the sweaters.
Zusha: [before I even brought out the socks] I want blue and white socks.
Me: [thinking fast, I noticed that these Children's Place socks have rubbery lettering on the sole] Look, these are blue and white... they have white letters on the bottom!
I won that round!
