Mommy! What's this?!

     Bobby and Mark Chappell were brothers that attended high school with me back in Georgia. Typical siblings, one was always trying to outdo the other. One year the rivalry hit an all-time high as they made a bet between themselves that we all had to endure.

     You see, the Brothers Chappell were quite the casual sort, wearing jeans every single day. At the beginning of this particular year, however, they upped the ante and one bet the other (I don't remember which brother came up with the brilliant idea) that only he was daring enough to wear the same pair of jeans every day for the entire school year. I knew their mother; she worked full time. Knowing what I know now with years under my belt as a mom, it was a close-to-impossible task for her to wash and dry two pairs of jeans and have them clean for her sons every morning. My healthy olfactory nerves proved this wasn’t happening. 

     Being a teenage girl, all I could think of was who in the world would do such a preposterous thing on purpose? I remember being appalled as we watched the brothers day in and day out wearing the same jeans over and over and over.

     No child of mine would ever do such a thing I said to myself! Absolutely not in a hundred million years! I would put my foot down as a parent, I remember thinking. When I grew up, I would be in charge of what my children wore!

     Fast-forward to lo, many years later after the Bobby-and-Mark escapade to when I had children of my own…and redheads at that. Parenting is no cakewalk on a good day but I had my work cut out for me as my second-born developed a keen sense of personal style early on.

     At three years old, regardless of what I laid out for her to wear, Anna was changing her clothes every day, all during the day, repeatedly from one outfit to another, from the time she got up in the morning until her little redhead hit the pillow at night.

     Until one day she found an outfit that, like Bobby and Mark, struck her fancy and struck it hard. Nothing else appealed to her anymore. At all.

     Mrs. Chappell got off easy with jeans. Anna’s garment of choice was a shiny, gold one-piece bathing suit. Day after day after day after day, my headstrong little girl would put on the bathing suit first thing every morning. No matter what I chose and no matter how well I tried to hide the swimsuit, she'd search till she found it and put in on again.

     It's not like I didn't try to dissuade her, offer other suggestions, yes, bribe her and even discipline her that I was the mommy and it was going to be my way. No way.

     "Fine," it was as though I could hear her say. Her bathing suit or her birthday suit, either way, but she'd make the decision.

     I read books by the “experts” and decided, as they suggested, to pick my battles. This one wasn't really that big of a deal considering what some parents had to go through I told myself (ie dirty teenage boy jeans, ugh!). She was potty trained, she wasn’t a picky eater, she slept well. And so I folded. It wasn’t like we were going to the opera or hanging out with royalty. She could wear her preferred attire to most places we went. And she wore it with a smile.

     We have pictures of Miss Anna with her big sister's first grade class – wearing her sparkly gold bathing suit and gold glitter shoes. It actually got to be kind of fun to see how she would dress it up or down, depending on the occasion. In the Spring it was the bathing suit and her Easter shoes. During the summer, she only needed her flip flops. In the Fall, she went trick-or-treating with her costume…and suit.  And when Winter came, she added a pair of tights underneath and a fur coat on top. My little swimsuit model was quite the fashion maven. I reassured myself that she would grow out of this. What an open-minded mom I was! I patted myself on the back.

     And then she turned four. Dear daughter finally put aside her beloved bathing suit…and graduated to a pink and white striped dress.

     By the time this child had grown out of her obsession of one outfit at a time, she had worn out five little pink and white striped Land’s End dresses. She wore one a day every day throughout kindergarten. My thanks to her teachers and classmates who didn’t really seem to care.

     As Anna grew, she perfected not only her love of fashion but also her sense of style. Her hair, her lips, her fingernails and even her little growing-up-girl toenails. Not just for herself any longer but for friends and family members as well, her mother notwithstanding!

     Nothing missed her eagle-eye inspections. Aside from all the time she spent making sure she was well coifed, she gave detailed attention to me - and I appreciated her efforts. Mostly.

     The length of each of my nails (especially if they weren’t the same), my fingernail polish ("I guess you were in a hurry when you put that on, right, Mommy?" she asked one day when the coverage wasn't dark enough to suit her. Amazingly enough, I had been!).

     "Why don't you ever get a manicure?" she inquired frequently. Thank goodness it wasn’t because I was having to wash that bathing suit or striped dress anymore.

     She looked upon one haircut with great disapproval.        “Why don't you cut off all those uneven layers?" (Those layers being, of course, the very ones I paid to get.)

     By far though, the examination that got my undivided attention had nothing to do with clothes or nails or hair.

     A new friend was visiting one day when my little fashion princess came and sat down beside me. She began to play with my arm. It was hot outside and I had on a sleeveless shirt.

     "What a sweet, loving girl," I thought, so proud of my little one. She continued on. In a minute it dawned on me that she wasn’t just giving her mommy some love pats. She was jiggling the "extra skin" under my arm that, much to my dismay, was fighting the good fight with gravity.

     "Mommy!" she announced. "What in the world is this?" she jiggled the skin in her grand dramatic style. "See it?! You need to get rid of this right away!"

     I smiled at my darling observant little child and thanked her for her suggestion as my new friend looked on in amazement (she had boys who had yet to realize she even had arms and who surely didn’t care what they wore).

     I shake my head to this day and laugh at the memories of my now all-grown-up little girl.

     But not too hard. I don't want my laugh lines catching her eye!