Each morning when Brynn wakes up, the first item of business she wants
to take care of is getting dressed. It is not uncommon for her to emerge
from her room dressed and ready for the day. This is awesome on days
when her outfit matches, is not two sizes too big or too small, and is
in season. However, most days it ends up being 0-3. She is very
opinionated on what clothes she wears and it takes some serious
negotiating skills to get her out of one of her "outfits" and into
something a little more...well cute. For this reason I choose to just
sit back and watch her outfit (and hair for that matter) evolve throughout the day as she changes
approximately 5,769 times a day and I only choose to intervene if we are
going somewhere or doing something with other people.
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| A small sampling of Brynn's outfits over the course of a single day. |
Brynn's outfit choice is largely driven by her affinity for
hand-me-downs. I go to the store and buy her cute coordinated outfits
and I cannot get the child to keep them on for five minutes. I literally
have 2-3 things that have never been washed because she outright
refuses to wear them. But when a box shows up with all of her cousins' old clothes she gasps like she's just been given a diamond ring
and immediately finds the most well loved items in the box and wears them day after day after day. It's not that the hand-me-downs are ugly clothes, they're not. There are just a lot of pieces for her to creatively mix and match. Maybe that's why she likes them so much. Maybe my coordinated outfits are stiffling her artistic side.
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| One of my personal favorites. |
Sometimes I find myself battling with her trying to get her to wear the clothes that are cutter and to let me do her hair all fancy. Why am I trying to make my daughter more high maintenance? Why I am I trying to teach her that the hand-me-downs she gets aren't good enough? Or that she does not look good enough unless she is all dolled up? Don't get me wrong, I want to teach my daughter how to look nice. But my goal is for her to feel good about herself as a person and not base her self worth on her physical appearance. I know there will soon be a day she wants all new clothes and won't leave the house without properly primping, so I'm just going to enjoy these simpler times.
2 comments:
I love it!! Brynn is so funny. I seriously just wrote the same thing on my blog about how Paige changes her outfits constantly. I say, embrace the independence. The time will definitely come when they want the most fancy, name brand everything. :)
The only thing I hate with Paige's clothes habit is that she LEAVES them EVERYWHERE. And I can't figure out which ones are clean (i.e. worn for 27 minutes or less) and which ones are dirty. Ha ha. Oh dear...
Okay, that last picture made me laugh out loud. She and Macie are two peas in a pod when it comes to clothing. And I have found myself thinking the exact same thing as you - why am I pushing so hard for her to look "perfect" every day??? I always say to Patrick, "Tell me it's okay to let Macie go to the library with a crazy hairstyle that she did herself and a horribly mismatched outfit!" I struggle with giving up that control, but you're right, we should enjoy this while it lasts! We just need to get together and let the girls play dress ups together.
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