1 Mother 2 Another

Cora and I went shopping on Friday,
looking for some basics for Maddie to fill out the holes in her
winter (and here in Texas I use that term loosely) wardrobe.
Unfortunately for Cora, Maddie’s hand-me-downs are copious
and cute, so Cora rarely gets to pick out many of her own clothes.
I was feeling generous (and was at the outlet mall. With a coupon.)
and told Cora she could pick out ONE outfit for herself.


Ecstatic, Cora began studiously perusing the store. Flipping
through racks and rounders of dresses and pants and skirts and
sweaters, Cora turned around and spied –


Blue sparkly leggings.


Cora gasped. A love affair was born.

My child grabbed those leggings and
clutched them for dear life, circling the store three times before
finally discovering ONE SHIRT that matched (in color, not sparkle)
the light blue shimmery leggings. Helplessly, I tried to explain
that Cora couldn’t wear just leggings and a shirt; she needed
a skirt or pants or dress or SOMETHING to go over the leggings.
“But Mommy, the leggings are nice and sparkly! No one will be
able to see my diaper through them,” she said, having heard
me work my way through similar(ish) conversations with Maddie.


How can I argue with that?


Cora loves anything sparkly, glittery, big-printed, or
bold-colored. Or all four. When I was pregnant with Maddie I was
given ten huge bags of hand-me-downs in sizes newborn to 3T, and
being tight with money I kept pretty much everything, even if it
wasn’t my style. This included two tank tops – one
bright orange, one bright green, both with fluorescent circles
stitched on them outlining shiny mirrors all over the front. Maddie
never touched them, but Cora found them in her drawer and they go
on heavy rotation. She’s already stated her intention to wear
them with a long-sleeved shirt underneath when it’s cold
outside.


This is just one example, but her closet’s full of others.
Cora gravitates towards glitter like Liberace to a
diamond-encrusted candelabra, and I fear it will only get worse as
she gains more control over her wardrobe. When we do crafting
projects, we have to make sure there are several bags of jewels for
whatever project we might be doing – jewel-encrusted
pumpkins, jewel-encrusted turkeys, you name it, it blings.


And yes, Cora now owns sparkly blue leggings and a blue-and-white
toile thermal top. And she wore them the very next day.


And she was right: the diaper doesn’t show through.