Currently Reading Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl By Anne Frank see related

A few weeks ago, I was climbing the stairs to get Andy dressed and thinking about how nice it was now to bring Andy in to preschool wearing clothes picked out by ME, carefully matching, mostly clean, clothes.  This is in contrast to Jack’s preschool days when he insisted on wearing the same pair of camouflage pants and a small rotation of shirts involving Star Wars characters, Spiderman, and possibly Superman or Buzz.  I don’t exactly recall.

Of course, that very same day, as I cheerfully plucked a clean shirt from his drawer, Andy looked at it and stated, “I don’t like that shirt!”  Forgetting all my training in having lived through three other preschoolers, I began enumerating all the benefits of this particular, basically boring shirt.  After which, Andy stated a bit more belligerently, “I don’t like that shirt!”  “But it goes so nicely with these pants!”  And his eyes started to tear up as he insisted, “But I don’t like it!  I don’t want to wear it!”

And then my brain returned, and I dug out Jack’s old Star Wars shirt (miraculously clean!) and peace was restored.  So, we dashed downstairs so we could walk out to wave to the other kids at the bus stop.

And then, he saw it.

A crumpled Buzz Lightyear costume, hastily discarded in the front hall the previous day.

“Mom!  Mom!!  I want to be Buzz!”  And I dreaded the future I saw quickly unfolding.  I briefly and hopelessly try to talk him out of it, but ended up helping him climb into the costume with rips in both knees—big rips through which legs have accidentally protruded in the dressing process—and dirt and stains all over.  I bought it at a consignment shop for Jamie five years ago, and it has seen lots of use.

And so, I whisked my little Buzz off to preschool.  The thing is that I’ve decided long ago that clothes don’t matter.  I mean, of course, I love when my kids are dressed beautifully, but I can’t think of any reason why dressing according to anyone’s standards should be important.  So, I let my kids go off to school wearing whatever bizarre attire they put together.  And I regularly take a Buzz or a caped figure or an obviously Brave and Courageous Man wearing a sword stuck in his pants to the store or library storytime.  But I had never actually seen any other child in all my years of taking kids to preschool come to school in costume (when it wasn’t a specially designated day).  I'm pretty sure most moms aren't lenient in this matter.

Still, the next preschool day, I was prepared and had at least washed the hole-ridden costume.  And I complacently accepted Superman the next time.  To think I used to dread camouflage pants.