Whatever happened to Geranimals?

Geranimals made my style conflicts disappear when I was an early elementary girl with pigtails and a bounce in my step. I could look into my closet and know that the lion shirt would match the lion pants, skirt and jeans with the little lion emblem on the back pocket. How simple dressing for school used to be! Today we need Clinton and Stacie from TLC"s "What not to Wear", to assure us if we match and are stylish enough for the office. Back in the day - all I needed were my clothes from Sears with the Geranimals animals and I was a regular fashion diva!

I was in the middle of school clothes shopping for my 11 and 7 year olds when I remembered the beautiful simplicity of Geranimals wear. I think my Mom used to buy me several interchangeable Geranimal outfits, along with new underwear, T-shirts, socks and shoes and boom - school shopping was done.

Nowadays things like school shopping are not so simple.

I hit the end of summer sales with my pre-teen daughter and this was a successful trip. By the time we scoured through 4 stores and endless clearance racks, we managed to buy some basics as well as some essential pieces for the fall. It came to my understanding that every girl in middle America has to own a poncho this fall. Luckily, we found one at Sears (gasp!) that fit both my budget and my daughters fashion sense. Child number one - 65% shopped for.

Child number two is generally really easy to shop for. I think it's because when you're shopping for boys jeans and you aren't sure of the size, you can find those jeans with the half elastic that hold them up if they are a little big or stretch if they are a little small. Truth be told after a summer of running, playing and growing I came to find out ( after buying clothes by educated guesses) that they don't make half elastic jeans for boys larger than a size 8. They do make half or husky jeans - but the sizing is so random it is almost impossible to shop for a child without them trying everything on. So after finding almost everything I needed for child one, I was disappointed when everything I had purchased for child #2 was grossly over-big. I had to return every last item and go home empty-handed for child #2.

For the next few weeks, I enlisted help from my family and friends. "My son will have no jeans to wear to school if you don't help me find an 8 1/2 or 10 1/2." My mother in law, who is a great blessing to me, found a track suit that fit my son. But even with her years of shopping savvy behind her, there were no jeans for my little guy to be found. So for the lack of geranimals, I resolved to purchase several sweat suits that my seven-year-old could ram around the second grade in, and I found two sweat suits he could wear to school.

About a week later, a friend of mine gave me some hand me downs from her son. I was pumped because I knew there had to be some perfect size 10's in those two white bags of clothes. I tore into the bags, sorted out the jeans, had my son try every pair only to find that out of fifteen pairs of jeans, only one or two fit.

What is Mom of two growing kids to do?

I wasn't sure, so I went shopping for socks, T-shirts, and underwear.

For those of you that don't have kids, the underwear and school supply shopping is the very last bit of school shopping that most parents do. I don't know why we don't shop for underwear first, but that is just the way it's done. In the midst of getting my daughter and son's finals shopped for I decided to take on last look in the boys section of Kmart and Walmart. To my great dismay, all of the 1/2 sizes were gone, and I was having to come to terms with sending my son to school on the first day as a phys-ed teacher.

As I took one last look at the boys clothes, my eyes scanned a rack of summer jeans that I hadn't noticed before. The jeans were on sale and hidden between the 7's and the 18 1/2' s was a pair of 8 1/2 tan jeans. My son wasn't with me to try them on but before anyone could say husky - the jeans were in my cart. The last five minutes of school shopping was a blur to me.

It suddenly seems that every item that I needed was right in front of me. Two more pair of jeans with a wallet and chain attached (another must have - only for all middle american boys) A shirt that had "Brazil" printed on it and a plaid button down shirt that matched the tan jeans all piled into my happy little school shopping cart. School shopping was now complete.

My 11 year old looked really cool on the first day of school. She wore a red angled skirt, red and black rock-n-roll T-shirt, black poncho, thick black belt and Chuck Taylor hi-tops. I think she felt confident as she walked into school for the first day.

My 7 year old also looked great for day one of second grade. He wore black baggy jean with the wallet and chain, the "Brazil" shirt, and his new Reebok sneakers.

We all like to make a good impression on the first day of school. Even seven year old boys like to look "cool". I just wonder why Geranimals aren't cool for kids to wear anymore? Kids feel this pressure to dress in name brand sneakers and hoodies today, when I was proud to have picked out my outfit and match all in the same day. Maybe it was a simpler time, but I miss something about the ease of that childhood moment.

After all the fuss of getting first day outfits together, we have settled into the second week of school and my kids aren't thinking so much about what they're going to wear, but if they got their homework done and the book bags ready for the next day. So far, my daughter's favorite piece of new clothing is a zip up hoodie with electric guitars on the front and my son's is (you guessed it) his red sweat suit. Simplicity of dressing isn't only something that I enjoyed as an elementary school kid, I think it's something kids still desire today. If only I wasn't so easily caught up in my own standards for brand names it's possible that they might still make Geranimals for me to wear. Let's see, do I want to wear the yellow lion or the orange tiger to school tomorrow? Cheers Geranimals, I'll be missing you every time I go back to school shopping.