Short Stature, Gigantic Heart

I was never the tall kid. My older brother is 6 feet tall, my little brother was 12 when he passed my adult height. He now uses my shoulder as an elbow rest. Even my little sister has a good 3 inches on me. I grew up "the little one".


The thing about being the short kid is that you get to tell yourself that once you're "big" height doesn't matter anymore. You live for that day of adulthood where suddenly being barely 5 foot tall is okay because you're an adult. In first grade, my teacher made us stand up by our desks to answer questions, I had to stand on my chair.

In high school, I was always at the end of the kick line on the dance team. If there were going to be lifts involved I was the one lifted. My coach called me and the other end of the line the "short Sallys".

And then I graduated. College was supposed to be a whole new world of doors opening, adventures, and equality amongst heights. My dorm mailbox was on the top row. The kids in the mail room liked to watch me jump to open it and empty the contents, bonus on the days I'd get the box open and had no mail. Nothing like meeting new people and when you'd expect to hear a "nice to meet you" all you get in return is a blank stare and "wow, you're kinda short".

So now I'm 28, pretty much a bona fide adult. There's been heartache along the way. I wanted a Subaru as my first brand new car, but when I went to test drive it found out there was no way for my feet to reach the pedals to be able to shift gears on the manual transmission. I refused to give up,on having a manual, I bought a Toyota. My dream car? Not even close, but it's mine and as long as I don't get into an accident in which the airbags deploy and could kill me, my car and I get along. I decided it was time to go back to school and finally get my BSN. Part of this goal has always been to get my CNA. Of course working in LTC means wearing scrubs to work.

Finding Petite length scrub pants has been hard enough, but something that I could feel good wearing has been next to impossible. Nothing is more upsetting then going into the local uniform store and asking for their "petite section". It always goes the same, the sales person does the "size up" gaze of up, down and back up. Then the look of "difficult customer" crosses her face. (Insert exasperated long sigh) "follow me". At this point the sales person huffs off through all the racks of the cute seasonal scrub colors in the fun colors and bright prints. Keep going past the men's section, colors are getting more drab at this point. Ahh.... finally, the "special lengths" section. The section is a rack, a small rack for that matter. The sales person dismissively waives over her shoulder, grumbles something along the lines of "if you need any help, please hesitate to ask" and goes back to the front counter. Hooray! My size scrubs! Wait, these are all tall. Oh they must be mixed in. On the entire rack there are 4 colors. None with cargo pockets, and no smalls. Awesome. I trek back up to the front of the store to ask the sales person about other options. "Order online" is the two words I get. I never buy pants online, too risky.

I've run out of options though. I wear scrubs 5 days a week I, have one pair of petite length cargos which I love. They're black though, not a lot of options for color if you want the right length. My other 4 pairs I hemmed myself, and the hems keep falling out. But if I'm going to pay that much for the pant, why pay more to have a tailor alter them?

So the search for an online option begins. I started just doing searches for the brand that my black scrubs are. That helped me find some online retailers. Still, not a lot of color in the petites. I'm a color girl. Twitter has been a great way to find other bloggers and businesses. And that's where I found My Nursing Uniforms . Great selection, great colors and great articles.

The reason I hate ordering online is that I stress over the sizing. All scrubs run differently. You can wear an XS in one and a M/L in another. Usually sites have just a generic size chart. Not these guys, you want to know Cherokee's sizing? You got it. Urbane or Landau? There individually, easy. I ordered on pair of Urbane boot cuts, no cargo pocket but they perfectly matched a top I fell in love with. Placed the order, shipping was beyond reasonable. And fast! If it wasn't for the weekend I would have had them in 3 business days. The sizing was right on, I worried over nothing. There's now no reason to spend the high boutique uniform store's prices when all the deals are online.

It just just happened that the "Strawberry" perfectly matched my toes, not planned but a fun surprise. I'm now in love with the Urbane line for all my fun colors. I had heard of them, but never really looked into them until My Nursing Uniforms, they have so many colors and they all coordinate. You can check out the site in my links section.

I wore my new scrubs for my first shift at my new facility. I'll write more about that later but I love going out there. The scrubs were a hit! I'm used to people commenting on my Koi prints, they always are received well. But the colors last night went really well with both the staff and the residents. Looks like it is time to get a few more colors. There's a great fuchsia with orange trim that I have my eye on =o)