Like mother like daughter

I have resigned myself to having no say in the shoes Sage decides to wear each day. When it's time to go somewhere, Sage, and Sage alone, chooses which shoes to wear. Beware if Eliza tries to take a shoe once it's been selected. Beware if I try to help her put said shoes on before she attempts them, remembers she doesn't know how to tie shoelaces, and asks for help. Beware if anyone tries to rush her in choosing a shoe. Beware the tantrums.

I recently learned a trick from Mark. My dear husband has started getting up with the girls and letting me sleep in the morning. When I wake up after a blessed extra half an hour of sleep, Sage and Eliza are almost always fully dressed—which is an impressive amount of progress to have made in a mere half an hour. But here's the genius Mark discovered--if you get Sage dressed early enough in the morning, she's likely to be too groggy to remember to pick only the pink or blue sweatsuit (again) out of her full dresser of cute, underused clothes, and insist on color coordinating her shirt and underwear.

Yesterday I tried to break the rules. Mark had dressed Sage in some cute red track pants. When it came time to put on shoes, I REALLY wanted her to wear her red Nike shoes. (When else do you wear red Nike shoes from a garage sale?) Unfortunately, but naturally, she was dead set on wearing black ballerina shoes. With track pants.

So I did the unthinkable. I bribed her. "I'll give you a candy if you wear the red shoes." Naturally she acquiesced. And I happily gave her the candy and put on the red shoes. Which brings their total usage to three times. Well worth the tootsie roll.

In Sage's defense (and because I know my mom will leave indignant comments on this post if I end now), I must confess a few idiosyncrasies from my past. Long past, I'll have you know. I had a little bit of a reputation for being rather opinionated about clothes when I was in 5^th grade. Lest you get the wrong idea, I must be clear that I did not really know a thing about fashion. I just had very strong opinions about clothes.

Janel's (5th grade) cardinal sins included the following:

1. wearing socks that were not the color of your shirt. (Ex: red shirt, jeans, and white socks. Terrible.)

2. wearing a shirt that was darker than the shorts/skirt/pants you had on [I remember being astounded by my gym teacher's outfit one day: magenta shirt and white skirt. What was she thinking?]

3. going more than two days without wearing lycra/spandex shorts—preferably black. [I remember someone asking me if I had more than one pair of lycra black shorts. I wish I had thought to lie and say yes.]

4. wearing a watch that was not sporty looking.

Bangs were another issue of tremendous importance. Bangs needed to be fixed and hairsprayed heavily, directly after showering—even if this took place at nighttime—so as not to move a millimeter, even in the strongest of winds. Hats were virtually ruled out, because of their propensity for squishing bangs. [Although, with great care, a baseball hat might be perched on top of the large boat of bangs, if the family were going to play baseball for FHE, and mom were to be videotaping and taking still shots throughout, to be used to torment me in later years.] I know that if I submitted a resume to Denny's with my 5^th grade picture, there's no way I would not be hired. [To this day, the mere words "bangs" and "hairspray" make me cringe a little. Probably because I wonder if someone's about to break out a picture of me from 5^th grade, and burst into raucous laughter.]

Wilson Family Home Evening

(I wish I could say I'm the little one wearing pink, but unfortunately, that's the always cute Suzy. I'm the big one wearing pink. Also wearing big bangs. And bright pink and blue spandex shorts which, happily, are hidden. Let the raucous laughter begin.)

If my mom was making a visit to school, I told her which clothes to wear [or more specifically, which ones to not wear…like those pink culottes], and I set out outfits for her and my youngest siblings--just in case my friends saw them. To my mom's credit, she never complained, and always obliged. Which was above and beyond the standard duties of a mother, I think. I might call it charity.

My sister, Danielle, was my most avid student in the fashion world. I taught her everything I thought about fashion...for which I owe her a very big apology.

Danielle's husband, Adam, has been known to ask "Why did your mom let you wear that stuff and get those glasses? And why didn't she help you with your hair?" The answer is, I'm sure Mom tried, with absolutely no luck. She probably wondered if too many hairspray fumes had caused permanent damage to my brain. I wonder how often she hoped and assured herself that "This too shall pass."

So, when Sage decides to wear the blue sweatsuit for the third time in a week, and chooses her pink Dora jellies to go with it, I should just be grateful that she's not setting out my outfit…or running off with the hairspray bottle.

PS--All included images are copyrighted, and my husband is almost a lawyer, so don't even THINK about trying to save the baseball picture to your computer...or else!