A little spring can be a dangerous thing to a Cracker girl

Last week brought the first real taste of Spring weather to Ohio. Temperatures rose into the low 70's for a few days and we all enjoyed spending some time outdoors.

Something else arrived with those warm winds last week: my 3 year old daughter's thirst for Spring fashions. To K the higher temps meant one thing: new clothes! She went straight to her closet one afternoon & announced she wanted to wear something else. As soon as the closet doors opened, she made a bee-line for the drawer where we keep her summer stuff and began picking out a new outfit. She selected a pair of capri's and a short sleeve shirt. I have to admit we both had fun picking outfits for her to wear last week. All of those bright colors and floral patterns put an extra spring in our steps.


Unfortunately, the weather has been colder this week, but that has not stopped K's appetite for warm weather fashions. Because of this, our normal morning routine has been derailed. It now goes something like this... She looks at the winter clothes I pick out for her each morning and says, "No Mama, I want to wear something else."

She then immediately heads to the closet and picks out a tank top and a pair of shorts and announces "I'm gonna wear this today". I proceed to rip them out of her hands patiently explain the fact that the current temp is 22 degrees and she cannot go outside in what she has picked. Finally after 5 minutes of negotiations, she relents & lets me help her pick something else as long as it's "new". This means I have to use my creative juices (which flow at the speed of molasses at 7:20 in the morning) to pair up summer clothes with warmer items so I can appease her sense of style while allowing her to venture out of the house without getting frostbite. All of this has to be accomplished quickly since we need to be in the van on our way to school just a short time later.

It's bad enough that we do this every morning, but for the last 2 days she's decided to double the pain fun with something new: the mid-day wardrobe change. Now, as she heads into her room for her nap she announces "These clothes are too dirty. I need new ones!" She then completely strips and heads back to her stash of summer clothes in search of a new outfit. And the negotiations start all over again.

Here is today's "afternoon" outfit - stripe capri's paired with a short sleeve top layered over a white l/s tee-shirt.

She comes by this craving for "newness" honestly. I have a vivid memory of an outfit I wore for school pictures one day in late August while still in my early teens. It was a brand new teal and navy plaid flannel shirt with corduroy trim and a pair of matching blue corduroy pants. Sounds fetching n'est pas? I figured, for some reason, it was the perfect outfit for picture day (seriously don't all teenage girls love over sized flannel shirts and matching corduroy trousers?)

I remember my Mom commenting that it was really too warm to wear that particular outfit to school. But darn it all, I loved that strangely androgynous outfit to pieces & I couldn't imagine being photographed in anything else (I need to find that photo, it's got to be somewhere at my parent's house!). So being a typical teen, I completely ignored my Mom and wore it anyway.

I probably don't have to tell you how hot & humid late August can be in Ohio. I probably also don't have to tell you that the bus ride home was like a journey through Hell. I'd say 10 pounds is a conservative estimate on how much water weight I lost in sweat on that particular trip home. Well, what can I say? I was blinded by love. The irrational love of a new outfit.

This is why I don't hide those summer clothes now that she's found them. You see, despite my earlier complaints, secretly I'm having fun with the new clothes too.