Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Sometimes It's Like My Kids Are People

Tai has been interested in selecting his own outfits for quite sometime now. And he certainly has specific ideas about what he likes. He tends to choose bright colors and shirts with pictures on them, and has a fierce preference for pants with elastic waists. This past weekend he went to a birthday party and carefully selected his outfit 2 days in advance -- running pants, a bright yellow t-shirt featuring colorful lizards, and black-and-yellow arm-warmers, which are actually baby leg-warmers. (Whereas I would have put him in dark-wash jeans and a neutral shirt, or perhaps a sweater).

Well, now Quynh is starting to voice her fashion preferences too. Sometimes I think it's just her way of asserting her independence for no good reason. Occasionally I pull a pair of pants out of her drawer in the morning and she yells, "noooooo!" And if I grab another pair of pants out of the drawer and she'll often say "noooo!" and then go for the first pair I picked.

Then the other day at Costco, I was perusing the feety pajamas (because I have a documented weakness for feeties). I selected some adorable, gender-neutral, red pajamas with little brown doggies all over them and handed them to Quynh. Then I pushed the cart around the other side of the pajama display, just to see if there might be another pair we should get (seriously, I have a pajama addiction) and Quynh spotted the pair she wanted.

She thrust the red doggy pair back and me and leaned as far out of the cart as she could, toward the PJ display, reaching for the pair she wanted and saying "eh! eh! kitty! kiiiiiiitty!" My daughter had her heart set on pastel pink leopard-print pajamas, with kitties on the feet. Oh man, of the 17 designs available these were *way* down on the list of what I thought was cute. I feebly tried again to sell her on the dog ones, but she had her heart set on the kitties. As the cashier rang them up, I rationalized that it's only pajamas and no one will see them. But I fear this is only the beginning of the end of my ability to dress her however I please.

1 comment:

Wendy said...

If it makes you feel any better, Ali's outfit yesterday consisted of her tankini underneath an old dance costume/ princess dress. Add rainboots and a hoodie, and she felt it was the perfect ensemble to wear to the farmers market. Old ladies love it (I think they probably can't see it properly)