How we dress our kids

I've always thumbed my nose at the idea of dressing kids in cute little matching outfits purchased at exorbitant prices from the likes of Janie and Jack or The Gap. Who needs collared shirts and sweater vests getting in the way when you're trying to do some serious playing? I can't imagine that would be comfortable, no matter how stylish it might be. I'm a laid-back kind of person who is most comfy in yoga pants and a hoodie. I assume my child is, too, but what do I know?

Baby C's wardrobe consists of a lot of hand-me-downs and secondhand finds. I'm pretty particular about what I buy for him - regardless of how good of a deal it is, I'm going to pass it up if it has a name brand on it. My kid isn't a walking advertisement for The Gap, Old Navy, or Cherokee. I don't buy much in the way of patterns, either - trying to get out the front door by 6:45AM is enough of a hassle without having to make sure that the shirt I grab out of the laundry basket matches the pants I grab off the floor. That's generally how I dress myself, too, so it's not like Baby C is getting shafted in the clothing department. He has a few pair of pants - 2 pair of jeans, 1 pair of light cargo pants, and 1 pair of dark cargo pants. (Am I the only one who always wants to add an "s" to pair? What is the grammatically correct way, anyway?) He has a bunch of shirts - a few long-sleeved, but mostly short-sleeved. My best idea yet was to buy a few plain, solid, long-sleeved t-shirts for him to wear under his short-sleeved t-shirts. That way he gets a lot more use out of them through the seasons. His Star Wars shirt has been with us since July. He has plenty of Bearcat gear and a Yankees jacket to keep him warm.

I'm not a huge fan of characters on clothing, but I make exceptions for old-school comic book logos and Star Wars. I'm thankful that he hasn't latched onto any television characters yet but I'm bracing myself for that milestone. Maybe if we make Chewbacca and R2D2 mainstays in our household we can avoid the Elmos and Barneys of the world. Oh, how I hope.

Anyway, the one thing that I haven't been buying secondhand are his shoes. So far we've bought him 2 pair. His first shoes were garage-sale finds, those super-cute Adidas Sambas. His second was a pair of blue Vans that pretty much matched my own. We got the third pair yesterday, and I decided that it was time for his first pair of Chucks.




After we got home and I snapped a few pictures to send to his Aunt Katie, I realized that I'm no different from anyone else. I'm a total brand whore. I guess it would be more accurate to say that I'm a "style whore," but not in the traditional sense of "style." I guess I want what everyone else wants - for their kid to look like them and follow in their fashion footsteps. Unfortunately for Baby C, his parents have no sense of style at all, and so he ends up with "geek" written all over him. It's like we're stuck in 1996 or something. He already has the Nirvana lullaby CD, now all he needs is a flannel. Kid is lucky I haven't sent him to school in his "statistically significant" shirt.



He's definitely well on his way to geekdom.



With parents like this, who's really surprised?






** this coming from the girl who wore nothing but leggings and NKOTB t-shirts for her entire 3rd grade year **