One of the great things about being a kid, and one of the things kids don’t appreciate, is they pretty much require a new wardrobe to begin each new season. For the most part, Caroline has outgrown all of her clothes from last fall and winter and thus, will require new fall and winter clothes.
I’m more than a little envious.
However, if I were to outgrow my clothes from last season, it would be due to entirely different reasons. Very unpleasant reasons involving strawberry butter, cheese biscuits and three chocolate cookies. So, I guess I should be thankful that all my clothes still seem to fit.
Anyway, I’ve slowly started buying things for Caroline’s back to school wardrobe here and there. It doesn’t get cold here until around November, so I can find some cute things on sale that will work through most of the fall. The thing I didn’t anticipate is that she’s reached the age where I can’t just hang the new clothes in her closet for safekeeping until back to school time arrives. Oh no, she has become a clotheshorse and, in all fairness, she comes by it naturally.
She seems to have a sixth sense that detects any new clothing that has entered our home. She can sense the presence of a Nordstroms shopping bag from 3 rooms away. I have never been more proud.
The problem is she wants to wear these new clothes immediately. And I have always said I am going to choose my battles, so I don’t really want to fight over the new clothing, which is why I gave in when she walked into the living room the other night wearing a new long sleeve t-shirt in lieu of a pajama top. It looked pretty cute and she had actually coordinated it with some Gap pajama bottoms with stars on them. I had to admire her fashion acumen. She won me over on style points, so I let her wear it to bed.
?
The other day I bought her two new pairs of pjs at Old Navy, and then stopped by a local boutique and found a cute hot pink outfit with bedazzled rhinestone hearts on the shirt and on the leg of the knit pants. I am normally not a fan of anything that appears to have been bedazzled, but it was more than a little sassy and I felt like it fit her personality, so I bought it. When I got home I pulled the pajamas out of the bag and she was really excited, but then she said, “I feel that there is something else in there.”
She sensed that she was in the presence of fashion.
So, I pulled out the bedazzled apparel and it was love at first rhinestone. She begged and pleaded to put it on and I finally acquiesced, with the stipulation that she could only wear it around the house. A few seconds later she was decked out and sitting next to me on the couch in her new little outfit. I noticed her doing something out of the corner of my eye, so I looked to see what was going on. She was kissing the rhinestone heart on her shirt, then she kissed the rhinestone heart on the pants. And then, she licked both of them.
Apparently, the outfit was good enough to eat.
And in a way, I understood. It’s how I felt in 5th grade, the first time I ever wore Jordache jeans. Okay, honestly, it’s how I feel about the jeans I bought last week.
The difference is I didn’t actually eat my jeans.
I had to make a statement that prior to motherhood I never dreamed of, “Caroline, don’t lick your clothes.”
A little while later it was time for rest time, so I put her in bed. About an hour later, she came out of her room and I noticed the front of her shirt was wet. Then, I noticed that a few of the bedazzles were missing.
“Caroline, what happened to your shirt? What did you do?”
“I ate those shiny, beady things.”
“What, you did what?” (Why do I always ask when I already know the answer?)
“It had too many of those shiny, beady things, so I ate some.”
“If you eat your clothes, Mama’s not going to buy you new ones.”
Words to live by, my friends. Words to live by.