Dress Up

When my first daughter was born, several people said to me, with great excitement in their voices, "It is so much fun to dress a girl!"

What they meant is that it is so much fun to dress UP a girl, seeing as how many little ruffled panties, hair ribbons, stick-on bows and glossy black shoes we received.

I never found this 'dressing up' all that much fun, though. Trying to wrangle a 6 month old's squirmy legs into thin nylons takes more coordination than I have. And despite both my girls' lack of hair until the age of 2, I never would consider those 'garter belt' or taped-on bows. For my daughters and my son, I preferred soft cotton sleepers, pants and pullover tops over anything too fussy.

Belly, my oldest, has had her share of clothing quirks, but nothing too unusual: she prefers simple tops and pants, or cotton dresses and striped tights; she has dressed herself for well over a year and usually looks just fine for the average five year old.

Jilly, on the other hand, has been a bit more challenging in this department. For the longest time, socks were verboten. Tights were disliked as well, so her many cotton dresses were paired with soft, elastic waist pants. Clothing is chosen mostly for its comfort factor with no consideration for color, pattern or seasonality. However, given that she is willing to do dress herself with very little help from me, I happily give her this opportunity to express herself.

Lately, though, her outfits have been getting a little odder than normal. It seems that she is taking "fall" quite literally as the bridge between summer and winter and pulling out clothes from both seasons. Check out this little number:




Or, this:


Note the long AND short sleeved tops, the pants AND shorts. Well, I guess she's ready for all kinds of weather.

For our little man, D, no real issues. . yet. . .after all, I do still dress him. However, he does have a peculiar fascination with footwear, so stay tuned on what happens when he starts to dress himself.