Fashion at its best!

It took me a while, but after five kids I came to realize that all children will one day shun Mom's clothing choices for them and develop their own fashion statement....for better or worse. With my first couple of children this proved to be a painful process for me to endure.

After all, I like choosing their clothes...to me, it's one of the fun perks of being a Mom!

So when Spencer came of this age and developed a strong aversion to shirts with collars, and khaki, and denim...I was just beside myself. All those cute clothes we'd purchased were just going to waste. And what kind of Mom lets their son wear ONLY athletic clothes every day of the year?

I am embarrassed to admit that we had some pretty hardy power struggles over this issue, culminating in a disastrous kindergarten picture day where I pretty much forced him against his will to wear a cute collared shirt just for pictures. It seemed so reasonable at the time. It was a brand new shirt he'd never worn and it was only for picture day. It's for posterity. That's not so bad.

Then the pictures came back and I just couldn't over how sad he looked. It was then I realized that it just wasn't worth crushing his new-found independence just so he could look "cute". Heck, he already was cute. He didn't need a certain type of clothes to prove that.

So when each child hits that phase, I hold my breath, close my eyes, and let them choose away...and hope that they'll outgrow it fast!

Even when Adam refused to wear shorts all last summer. No problem. We just passed those brand new shorts on to someone else and marveled at how stoic he was wearing jeans when it was 95° outside.

Now here is my fifth child, fully entrenched in making her own fashion statement....

And I can proudly say that I barely flinch when Ellie wears her princess dress every day for weeks on end...with me having to steal it while she's asleep to wash it.

And I don't even bat an eyelash at the ever lovely stripes, plaid, and Santa hat look.

Or even the jeans under the dress fashion statement.

But today after donning a pair of bloomers on backwards as her bottoms of choice, I felt my old tendencies return and actually suggested that she may want to consider choosing another pair of shorts before going to the park.

Did she do it? Of course not.

Did I care? Maybe just a little...