Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Fashion sense


There’s nothing cuter to me than kids who dress themselves. You’ve seen them—little girls at the store with their fairy princess costumes, shorts when it’s too cold out, or a black velvet dress in the summertime. Kids never seem to get the season right. Of course, with the weather around here lately, that’s understandable.

When my oldest was born, I coordinated her outfits for as long as I could. It was the early 90s, yet I clung to the 80s, so the poor girl probably looked like Madonna (her early years) with her oversized hairbows and matching socks. I also put her in lot of cutsie girlie outfits, like the watermelon dress. I saw a photo recently in which my daughter had to be six or seven in a watermelon dress—with bloomers. Poor thing.

About third grade, she put her foot down and refused to wear hairbows. In fact, she wanted her hair cut very short, just in case I tried to make her. Then she found a pair of old blue jean shorts and a t-shirt with tweetie bird on it, and that’s what she wore—for years!

Even as a teen, she preferred blue jeans and t-shirts to dresses, jewelry and bows. I think I ruined her. So, I gave the other two free reign with their clothes, and it’s always funny to me to see what they pick out. Most of the time, I smile but keep quiet, although I recently had to tell my daughter that plaids and stripes just don’t match.

With my son, I find myself asking things like, “Do they let you in school with holes in your pants.” To which he replied, “Oh, I’ve worn some worse than that!” The neighbor up the street is six years older and twice as big. No matter where I hide those hand-me-downs, he finds them and bounds down the stairs, “Mom, look at me!”

“You look so handsome,” I say, pretending not to notice his pants are two feet too long.

He also has a penchance for muscle-shirts, or wife-beaters, whatever you like to call them. I’m afraid he got that from my husband, but HIS fashion-sense is a whole other story. Anyway, today, my son dug out a blue sleeveless shirt and red sweatpants with the pockets hanging out.

He answered the door, and our neatly-dressed neighbor boy said, “Dude, what kind of shirt is that? I can see your armpits!"

"It's one that he picked out," I laughed. "And those are the best kind!"

2 comments:

My ADHD Me said...

"I can see your armpits" lol

That's like my son's hair. I decided to "chooses" my battles and for about a year or two it looked awful! Then one morning I woke up and the night before, he and a friend had cut it short and it looked WONDERFUL!! best of all....His Choice!

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