Horror Upon Horrors

Okay, now I come from a family of 8.  I feel like I know a thing or two about the stages children go through as they grow and mature.  I'm the third child, with three siblings below me--the youngest being 10 years younger than me.  I can particularly remember the stages of odd habits of dressing they each went through.  I remember one brother being a huge fan of patterns (it was the nineties, after all.  Gosh, I hate the nineties fashion), particularly a big bold pattern on top and a quite different pattern on the bottom...and no underwear. (Boy, did that get a lot of disapproving looks when he was wearing shorts and lounging around.)  My other brother loved to layer.  He was afraid of getting tan.  He wanted to stay as white as possible--go figure.  He would wear like fifty pairs of shorts and then super long socks stretched and pulled up as far as they could possibly go and...horror upon horrors, he probably topped that off with a pair of thong sandals.  My little sister went through a hat stage and a bright colors stage and all of that fun stuff.

My mom would always patiently explain to us older children, that you need to let kids express themselves or whatever.  Yah, yah, yah.  Got it.  I think I would say that I've learned a pretty relaxed art of parenting from my mother.  So, I thought I was ready for most things when it came to the whole style quandry with kids.  I figured if I don't give my kids really outrageous clothes to choose from, then they probably can't do too much damage...right?

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Now, Elliott went through that whole layering thing a while back, remember?  I took it in stride.  But this?  This I'm not so sure about.  I guess I'm exaggerating a bit about the whole thing, but here it is.  Elliott wants to be a superhero.  He does all kinds of fighting moves all day long.  He does headstands.  So, Elliott has been on a quest for clothing that can help him perform in that way.  It started out innocently enough.  Pajamas.  He always has to wear pajamas.  I have a major battle on my hands anytime we go out, because he hates to have to put on regular clothes.  A bit annoying, but nothing I couldn't overcome.  And then, from pajamas, it went to tight fitting shirts.  If he has to wear street clothes for going out of the house, then he wants them to fit just right.

"Okay,"  I thought, "No big deal.  That's kind of a style right now for guys.  The whole, 'fitted shirt' thing.  I can live with that."  And then it happened.  One day, we weren't able to find a tight enough shirt that wouldn't fall down/up when he stands on his head.  We had somewhere to be and Elliott was in his room trying on each shirt and then standing on his head.

"See?!"  he would huff as he stood on his head to show me how the shirt didn't stay in place.

"Elliott, its fine.  Just come on, we have to go.  You're not going to be doing any fighting at the doctor's office anyway."

Any one who knows Elliott knows that this kind of logic doesn't work with him.  He's just like me...  Once he gets something in his head, thats it.  He gets really frustrated if things aren't just right.  So of course, my comment only served to frustrate him further.  So that's when I told him he could just tuck his shirt in when he did his flips and stuff.  It was all in the heat of the moment and the pressure to get out the door.

Well, now he has to have his shirt tucked in at all times. Usually its tucked into the front of his pants and in the back its tucked into his underwear.  And even worse, it looks like I enjoy the shirt tucked in style.  (No offense to those who do enjoy it.)  Most of the time he just looks silly.  And he's always tucking.  Its kind of funny.  He looks a bit like my Dad when my Dad does the whole tuck-in-go technique.  Dave really hates it.  And at times, he'll even forbid Elliott to tuck in his shirt.  The only consolation I have is that while Dave and I both think he looks ridiculous, at least I was somewhat prepared.  David was totally ambushed.  Boom! Roasted!

Blessings...