Fashionista

The Pie has a thing for fashion already.

It started with the Winnie the Pooh sweater with faux fur collar. It was sitting in a laundry basket at my mother’s house when Pie spotted it. At that time, she wasn’t using her words very well, so she brought it over to my mom and motioned her to help her put it on. Once she had it on, she’d parade back and forth, from the kitchen to the family room, displaying her fancy wares. But soon the sweater became a bit snug. When Gramma tried to coax her out of it, the Pie roared. So Gramma acquiesced and the Pie commenced her procession, with belly protruding.

Eventually, she discovered that the time to hit the jackpot was when I did the laundry. I’d sit in the great room with a pile of Bean clothes and a pile of baby hangers and I’d hang everything up while the Beans played around me. Shortly after I had all of the clothes neatly hung or folded, the Pie would rifle through my stacks until she spotted a fabric of interest and demand that I re-dress her. “On! On!” became her chant as she dangled the outfit in front of me.

Shoes aren’t left out of the equation. Don’t dare take off her pink butterfly sandals if she’s not ready to give them up. DaDa sent the Beans each a pair of sparkly sandals a few weeks ago and Pie doesn’t care if she’s in a dress or in capris, she must wear her blue sequined sandals.

My mom warned me. She told me to enjoy dressing them up now because once they reach adolescence, they’ll want nothing to do with the clothes I choose for them. Little did I know that Pie was on the fast track!

Yesterday, she found a swimsuit in her diaper bag. She plucked it out and ran over to me. “Maggie swimsuit on!” I brushed her away, as I was in the middle of something, but she persisted. “Maggie. Swimsuit. On!” Ugh. Okay. It had just rained, so we weren’t going outside to their pool, but I went along with it anyway. Then, “Momma diaper on!” Which meant that she wanted me to switch her regular diaper to a Little Swimmers diaper. No ah ah, Lady. Those things are a rip off and I’m using them as sparingly as possible! After a few minutes of complaining, she moved on to another suggestion. “Momma swimsuit on! Momma swimsuit on!” I nipped that in the bud right away. “Momma’s swimsuit is dirty.” Is it wrong that I’m lying to my daughter already? It doesn’t matter because she accepted my answer with an emphatic, “Ew!” and began twirling around the room in her pretty pink swimsuit.

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