Let's Talk About Socks, Baby, Let's Talk About You and Me...

I'm going to preface this whole post with this: I love my son.  I love his quirks.  I would not trade a single aspect of his personality for anything.  However, he is a total and complete weirdo. 

I mean, he's got a list of idiosyncrasies that would make your brain hurt.  I could write and write and write about the strange crap that Jack does.  But in the interest of preserving your sanity, I'm only going to focus on one of those:  his inane obsession with wearing socks.

The whole absurd thing started 4 or 5 months ago when he got an owie on his toe but wouldn't let me put anything on it to make it feel better and the miracle of the magic mommy kiss wore off every time he looked down and saw the teeny red mark.  So, to preserve (silly me, in retrospect) the illusion that his foot was fine once I put a kiss on it, I talked him into putting a sock on to hold the kiss in place (and hide the owie from sight).  My fix helped him that evening and the next and I figured myself for some kind of genius until I tried to take the socks off for a bath and he wigged the hell out on  me.  Like, dude needed a straight jacket.  So I left his socks on and  he happily got into the tub and we did the whole thing just fine until he got out and I had to take the wet socks off.  He would not allow me to remove the wet sock until I proved to him that I had a dry sock ready to go.

The owie has LONG since healed.

The socks remain.

I ask him periodically if we can take them off but no, he will not let me.  There is still some mystery owie that needs to heal beneath these all-powerful socks. 

I desperately need to get him over this thing before summer because the idea of rolling around town with my son rocking socks and sandals makes me a little queasy.  (Fashionista I am not, but even someone like me has standards.)

Jack's sockophilia even causes marriage issues for us.  I mean, nothing serious, but periodically over the last 4 or 5 months the "sock or no sock" argument rears its nasty head and Justin gets it in his noggin that Jack absolutely should no longer wear socks and I insist that it does not, in the grand scheme, matter.  Things ensue as follows: Justin takes off everyone's socks and bellows about how there is no owie, Jack wails in misery befitting a crude amputation of his leg and I throw my hands up and holler at the two of them for fighting about socks.

Socks.

My husband and I rarely argue, but the sock issue never fails to spark a tiff.

Freaking socks.

I've never understood all the inner workings of the Jack mind, nor will I ever, I'm sure.  Just once, though, I'd like to get this.  If only to say to Justin, "Pipe down, it's only a bit longer," in attempts to assuage his frustration and ease my fashion nightmares. 

Grrrrrrr.