Lopsided is "in," right?

I knit and knit and knit, then I seamed and seamed and seamed and trimmed edges and darned extras and I was so proud when my stripes lined up (surprised is more like it!). And we took pictures of the cutest cardigan you ever did see. Then I went to sew my buttons on (which, miraculously fit perfectly with the button holes) and my button bands have a difference in length of about 2 inches. Gah! I was speechless. I don't even know where to start to fix this. I ended up sewing the buttons where I thought they should go in relation to the stripes. And now I've got to figure out some way to fix the button band with the buttons!!


Here are my ideas:
Solution 1: pour hot water on selected areas of the button band to shrink the wool
Solution 2: send the sweater to my mother and she can use her sewing machine to stitch selected rows together and then cut off the extra wool
Solution 3: rip up the neck band and reknit the button band - but I'd rather send a kid around with a lopsided sweater than do that!
Solution 4: fuhgetaboutit and send some poor child to school in a sweater that looks like I knit it while riding the special bus (in between drooling on myself and licking windows ).
HELP!!!!
Did I mention how happy I was with the seams and really, really want to wake up tomorrow and realize I was just looking at it from the wrong angle....