You start out dressing your baby in the most adorable clothes you can find. I mean, the baby is already the cutest thing on earth but he or she is that much more irresistible is a miniature sweater vest or a tiny tutu. Somehow over the next couple of years, your baby grows up and decides your clothing selections don’t meet their own style needs. They assert themselves and insist that their striped polo shirt matches their plaid shorts. It’s a battle most parents face, some of them even embrace it. If we are hanging around the house I’m fine with whatever my kids choose to wear but I put my foot down when we are headed out to dinner and my kid wants to wear his wizard hat….wait, that really happened. Only it was the Hubs who wanted to put his foot down but I insisted it wouldn’t hurt anything. Hubs was a little embarrassed but those who noticed just thought it was cute. Cute is better than a screaming and unhappy three year old because his special hat got taken away.
My kids are still little- 4, 2 and 9 months. I know when they get older I’ll probably have to get a little more strict about their clothing choices- espeically with two girls. For now though, I’ll sit back and enjoy the creativeness of their individual styles. McKinley likes to use a rubber boot with handles as a purse. Pretty inventive, right? That could take off! Here she is showing off her sparkly belt. So far this has matched everything she’s tried wearing it with so we’ve lucked out.
My son on the other hand, begs for pajama days. That’s my kinda kid. Sometimes we compromise with sweats. Sweats are for “stay home days”. For the most part I don’t have any fashion issues with Jackson. He prefers if one of us lays his clothes out for him. Probably because he hates it when we send him back to change his shirt when it doesn’t matches. It’s not that he cares at all what he’s wearing, he just gets mad if he has to get dressed twice. The one thing we do struggle with on occasion is the Transformers suits. He has a bit of an obsession. Once they’re on, he doesn’t want to take them off. He cries and wants to wear them to bed. This, I have a problem leaving the house. Just saying….
I wonder how long my girls will put up with this:
How do you deal with your child’s individual styles? Does it become more of a battle when they get over? I’d love to hear your stories, especially of the cute outfits your children put together on their own. Leave a comment!
I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and jcpenney blogging program, for a gift card worth $50. For more information on how you can participate, click here.