Packing, Shopping, Packing and More Shopping

Tomorrow my son leaves for the Naval Academy for a week. He is participating in the Naval Academy STEM program. Being all boy - naturally he didn't want to pack his bags until today. So early this morning I asked him to gather all his clothes so I could wash them. Notice how I didn't ask him whether they needed washed - this was an obvious and correct assumption on my part. So down came a mountain of laundry which I dutifully began washing. As each load came out of the dryer it occurred to me that the clothes coming out - looked suspiciously smaller than the boy that was to wear them. My son has had a major growth spurt. When I say major I mean that last June my son wore size 8 shoes. This June he is wearing size 13. Last June my son was 5 feet tall. This June he is 6 feet tall and yes he is still growing. My husband is 5'10" and I am 5'8" and our 13 year old little boy towers over both of us. Sometimes it is hard to keep a serious face while scolding him for a messy room when I have to wag my finger and look up at him looming over me. My little boy is not so little. So today I put my mommy hat on and MADE him try on his clean clothes. Okay. So maybe I need to run to the store really quickly and get a week's worth of new shirts. My son is NOT a shopper so I had to go out solo. I came back with a nice assortment of new shirts AND got his approval. SCORE! So back to the packing. Man clothes take up SO much more room in a suitcase than boy clothes. I had to get out the bigger suitcase. We were really making progress now. We got to the undershirts when again - I was left looking at undershirts that were pathetically small. I had my son try them on. I immediately got the impression that it is in no way a cool thing to have one's shirt end above one's navel. Back to the store! I got boxers, undershirts and more socks. I was willing to pack his suitcase quite neatly with everything folded just so, but once again I got the look that mommies do not pack 13 year old boy's suitcases. My son wanted to throw everything in the suitcase. As in literally THROW it all in. I wanted things packed in neat cubes. A cube for shirts. A cube for undershirts. We ended up compromising. He agreed to put his clothes in folded and I agreed to let him pack. Tomorrow we leave for the airport bright and early. I will really miss him! He is super excited and is so looking forward to his trip. I hope it is still cool for 13 year old boys to tell their mommies all about camp as I cannot wait to hear all about his Naval Academy adventures.