1 Mother 2 Another

I’ve noticed that the girls go
through different clothing phases, and I’m assuming
it’s not isolated to just my kids. I expect some clothing
choosiness to go with developmental growth; as kids get more
independent, they want more say over their outfits or favorite
colors or whatever. But I have to say, my kids develop some weird
“tics” about their fashions, which leave me scrambling
and uncertain every time I go on a buying spree.

There was the time last fall that Maddie
announced she disliked blue jeans – the material was
“too heavy” and didn’t “flow”. Since
we were using a large stack of hand-me-downs, the only pants
I’d bought to supplement the free clothing were a few pairs
of jeans. I spent almost a month despairing over my child as we
debated every morning the best way to match her wardrobe of tops to
the two or three pairs of pants she deigned to wear. Because after
a week of the jeans boycott, she added corduroys to the list, which
made her pants wardrobe nonexistent.


Maddie moved straight from that phase into the
“fastenless” period. This was during potty training,
and Maddie was completely uninterested in wearing any bottoms that
required any kind of fastening whatsoever. I got that from the
potty-training point of view – faster off in an emergency
– except that she always asked me to help her with her
clothes anyway. I think it had more to do with independence –
she couldn’t snap the heavy snaps or even finish all the
zippers, and she was very interested in dressing herself every
morning. But she’d spent the year before disdaining
elastic-waist pants, so we had very few bottoms other than leggings
to choose from – I’d foolishly used the previous
year’s tic as a buying guide - and Maddie felt leggings
simply weren’t “beautiful enough” for most days.


I know, I know.


But this is nothing compared to Cora, who is currently going
through her “overhead” boycott. Any time a shirt
approaches her which needs to go over her head – which is,
oh, every day – she begins with the wailing and gnashing of
teeth. “No go over my head! No go over my head!”
she’ll scream, even as I try to stretch the head hole out and
make it as loose as possible. If I get it quickly enough, Cora will
sob, “That wasn’t too bad!” even as she finishes
up with her crying. Thanks, I think.


I understand the fear of the dark or not being able to see or
whatever, but do you know how many button-up shirts there are out
there for toddlers? Pretty much none. It’s a snappy-crotch
world, I’m afraid. Cora’s got one pair of pajamas that
don’t go over the head – the one-piece that snaps all
the way up the front – and she begs for them every night.
“Are Cora’s purple pj’s clean? Can Cora wear
purple pj’s please? They go over my feet!”


This is in direct contradiction with Maddie’s wish – to
wear matching pajamas with Cora. Maddie is a very big fan of eating
breakfast in identical pajamas to Cora, which obviously won’t
always happen since Maddie has no purple pj’s. Meanwhile,
I’m pulling my hair out and wondering why my kids care so $#%
much about what they freakin’ wear.


After all, if they’re using me as a role model, they’ll
be dressing themselves in whatever’s clean and closest at
hand. C’mon, wouldn’t you want to be like me?