Holes in his story

Another one bites the dust.

Or perhaps it's more accurate to say another one meets the pavement on the playground.

I'm writing about, if you hadn't guessed, AJ's pants. The third pair in as many weeks now has a gaping hole in the knee. This particular pair is barely a month old!

"I have sharp knees," was AJ's first attempt at an excuse.

I don't recall a conversation with the second pair - they were an older pair that, quite frankly, surprised me for lasting as long as they had. But when I caught a flash of skin peeking through the third pair, I finally had it.

"AJ! What are you doing to your pants? What's it going to take for you to be more careful?"

"Mom," he started to protest, clearly nervous by the tone of my voice, "it's Dad's fault. Sometimes we wrestle..."

My look of disbelief must have convinced him that argument probably wasn't going to get him very far.

"I mean, sometimes on the playground I just fall down."

Ever since he was big enough to move, AJ has given his clothes a workout. About the only pants he hasn't destroyed are the ones he's outgrown before he could wear them for long. Even AJ is aware of how rough he is on anything that covers his knees. Two summers ago, he didn't want to wear shorts for fear of skinning his knees. He wanted the fabric as an extra layer of protection.

My new strategy is to make him wear pants he doesn't like. That way if he wrecks them, I won't care as much. He has several pairs of wind pants with words or brand names printed on them. AJ hates wearing clothes bearing letters or numbers because "pirates don't wear things like that."

Day one was a success.

"I didn't get any holes today," he told me after school.

We'll see how long this idea... and his pants... last.