Fashionista

What to blog about?

Everyone on the blog roll is rolling out new blogs.

But I didn't get a dog (though I do promise my Tired friend to keep my snarky dog comments to myself. Well, mostly).

I didn't make tuna casserole.

The only thing that inspires me to cook at home rather than take the kids out to pizza or burgers is the thought of bringing a 9 month old to a restaurant [shudder.]

I am not starting a new job, a new diet, or a new blog.

So here I sit.

However, I will share with you a parenting thought, which will surely be included in my upcoming seminal book on child-rearing, "Leave Me Alone So I Can Read the Paper/Old Copies of People and Entertainment Weekly."


So, as many of you know - SPOILER ALERT! - kids grow up.

And Ariella is definitely doing this whole "growing up" thing. It's evidenced in the homework, the sleepovers, the running into school with friends without a backwards glance to a frantically waving mommy, the 'tude, the arranging her own social calendar, the dependence (mine on her), the ability to share a knowing glance with her, the sense of humor that, while still heavily reliant on "things that come out of our bodies," can appreciate more subtle forms as well.....


But I breathe a sigh of relief that there is at least one thing standing in the way of us and full-on tweenhood: Fashion sense.

Ariella loves to wear things that "match," so will come out of her room decked out in all manner of pink, for example - pink shirt, pink skirt, pink leggings, pink socks. Not necessarily complementary shades of pink either. She doesn't quite understand why a brown shirt with a brown skirt isn't the height of fashion (though she fondly recalls the day, a few years ago, when Donny dressed Yaakov in that combo, and I told him that Yaakov looked like a large piece of dirt.) She wore the same exact purple shirt and denim skirt two days in a row because after the first day, she and her BFF decided to wear their matching purple shirts and denim skirts the next day.

Or she decides to wear her crew socks over her leggings, because with her ankle socks, some skin shows and it's cold out, Mommy!

Once, I considered telling her that crew socks over leggings might look a little funny, but then I thought, So what? She picked it out herself, she'll be warm, she's independent, she's happy... and I'm happy because somehow, her sense of fashion reminds me that under the homework, the 'tude, and the friends, she gets to be little for a little while longer.