fashionistas?

Ask most 2 and 3 year olds to go pick out their outfit for the day, and you will probably be frightened by the results. Before I had kids, I fully expected to be the mom who had the 3 year old boy who insisted on going out in a green dinosaur t-shirt and bright yellow shorts with his Superman cape and cowboy boots on. Or to have the daughter who wore nothing but tutus and plastic jewelry and striped shirts with polka dotted pants, and 2 different colored socks. I was ok with that thought. I think it is very important for kids to express their individuality and if they want to wear mismatched clothes and accessories, then awesome. But I will draw the line at expressing oneself through tattoos and hair color before the age of 16. After that, we will talk.

But somehow, I ended up with 2 children who have impeccable taste and can coordinate an outfit better than most 30 year old men (and some women) I know. You ask them to go pick out their outfit for the day and they will stand in front of the shelves, carefully choosing their shirts and shorts, making sure the colors match. Once they choose their outfits, they will go through their 19,000,000 pairs of shoes to find the pair that has the same colors as their clothes. Then they go to their bucket of sunglasses and pick out the pair that coordinates the best. CB will even go so far as to pick out a cloth diaper that best matches her outfit, or will pick a shirt and baby legs just to match her cloth diaper. If I pick their outfit out, often they will go back to the room to get a different pair of shoes that they feel matches better, and they are almost always right.

It can get pretty ridiculous at times, especially when they freak out if their sippy cup lid color doesn't coordinate with the color of their cup. They get pretty excited when their plate color matches their cups too. CB will constantly point out when my clothes are matching or not. Although, me matching is very rare these days because so few things actually fit and I stay in tank tops and elastic waist pj pants while we are at home because those are the only things that are even slightly comfortable. I am working hard to be sure she and W don't turn out to be like the 6 year old punk I encountered in the grocery store nearly 2 years ago who so kindly pointed out that my white flip flops didn't match my blue tank top. I am trying to stress that they are not allowed to give fashion advice unless 1) they are married to the person, 2) they are being paid to tell people what to wear or 3) one of their friends is trying to squeeze their size 10 booty into a size 6 jeans.

Truth be told, I'm pretty sure it is all my fault. Ever since they were born I have made sure their outfits have been coordinated, right down to the pacifiers and blankets. People used to laugh their butts off when they noticed that the binkie matched the outfit and jokingly say something about me doing it on purpose and I would say, "Um, yeah I did it on purpose!!" It's not like it is hard to put a blue binkie in the diaper bag. I don't know why I do it, and I know it drives my husband absolutely crazy. So crazy that I'm pretty sure he will go out of his way to make sure the kids' clothes don't match when he dresses them just to spite me. I know he can coordinate clothing too, he just thinks I'm a big fat freak show for caring. What can I say? It makes me feel good to see things in order. The rest of my life might be a complete mess, but if those sunglasses match that shirt, then life is just a little bit better. They are doomed, aren't they?