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I'm sure everyone's been eagerly awaiting the next installment of my Pet Peeves Series.   I want to assure everyone that today's entry by no means exhausts my robust list of annoyances, so there is little danger of this series ending anytime soon (insert relief/horror emoticon here). 

Today's topic is the sizing of children's clothing, or as I like to call it "the random number manufactures print on the tag, all while probably laughing hysterically".   It's bad enough that designers destandardized women's clothing sizes to the point that none of us are "a size" anymore, we are all "a size in x", as in, a two in Gap, a six in Tahari, or in my case, medium maternity, preferably 100% elastic; but to infiltrate the children's clothing market has no excuse.    At least manufacturers are getting some benefit from "vanity sizing" adult women's clothes (we are suckers for that lower number no matter how big of a lie we know it to be), preschoolers are less likely to reward in kind.

Given this, I am extremely irritated that I have to become some sort of mathematical savant in order to remember the correct size for my son, depending on store and brand I'm looking at.   For example, my THREE year old son (39 months) wears a size 8-9 at H&M, a 6 or 7 at Target, a 5 in European brands converted to US sent by overseas friends, a 6 in Old Navy pants but a 8 in their shirts, and a 8-10 in t-shirts that people sell at the zoo or tourist attraction.  These being but a few examples. How am I supposed to keep up?  This is but one child after all though you might be tempted to think I'm dressing a preschool (or actually, probably an elementary school) class if you looked in my shopping bags.

So children's clothes makers, please, I beg of you, no more creative sizing.  I have enough to worry about (where can I fit into the smallest possible size of jeans for me, for example) without spending half my life returning clothes I bought for Jack in the wrong size.