The Moral of the Story is Wear Your Favorite Shirt

When I was in fifth grade my family moved from Corvallis, OR to Dos Palos, CA.  I was thrilled to be moving next to Disneyland, Hollywood, the beach, and all things cool.  I was a bit surprised when I found myself in a small agricultural town hours from anything I had seen on TV.  Nevertheless, I did begin my journey into a new awareness if not coolness.  In California we could wear pants on Friday unlike my previous school where we wore dresses or skirts everyday.  My mom took me to the local jeans store to buy my Friday outfit, and I mean  my every Friday outfit.  I still remember the green striped jeans and green turtleneck.  I began to realize some people had more than one Friday outfit.

  It was in middle school that I learned a new rule, girls weren't supposed to wear the same clothes twice in a row, even if they weren't very dirty, even  pants.  So I began to alternate my 3 pair of pants even if I didn't wash them in between.  As time went on I got so good at alternating, I had my outfits in order and would put the one I wore most recently in the back of the line.  Fashion pressure began to build.  In college I tripled my options with roommates.  Such a travesty come summer though. We took our respective outfit elements with us to our hometowns. Pretty clothes had become important to me.

Then a change occurred.  I married and began having children.  First the crash, since I didn't fit into anything and wasn't going anywhere anyway, I just wore my husband's clothes.  Then the epiphany, I still had my self respect and didn't I want my babies to think their mom was attractive?  Then the balance, get myself ready to meet the world, be comfortable but presentable, don't forget mascara and then don't give it another thought.

The next phase was dressing these new little bodies. Paul's mom supplied us with all manner of cuteness and kept us in Sunday outfits.  It was so great when I could dress them in whatever I chose.  Then they got opinions.  For most of my boys the ruling criteria was comfort and coolness.   Coolness usually meant some hero on the front.  I adjusted to that and was very relaxed about what they wore.  One son wore a blue and orange striped shirt whenever it was clean.  A classmate commented, "You always wear that shirt."  My son happily replied, "I know.  It's my favorite shirt."  Another son liked to wear Old Navy flag shirts so much that's all he wore.  He had five of the same shirt and wore a different one every day.  Sadly, I'm not sure if his teacher knew it a different shirt every day.  I was okay with all this, and then I had my first daughter.


Few people could resist the finally-a-girl-after-5-boys scenario.  I received some of the most adorable clothes I had ever seen as gifts.  I put her dresses in order and dressed her in something cute every day.  There was no such thing as too much pink.  To this day I have to work hard to resist dressing her.

I decided this might not be the healthiest way, so I allowed my second daughter to wear what she wanted.  That usually meant her brother's t-shirt tucked into sweats or shorts.  I just learned this week that she tucked her shirt in because her brothers were always picking her up and flipping her around, and she wanted her shirt to stay down.

Tucked in brother's Old Navy flag shirt.
Gabe said he doesn't like this picture for 2 reasons.
 He's not wearing pants and he doesn't like bananas.


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With this background information in place, I'd like to discuss the phenomenon of school pictures.  At first I thought this was a day to dress the children in their nice casual outfits .  I guess I wanted a record of what I had chosen for them? Then I realized what I really wanted was a record of what shirt they would choose for themselves.  The teachers probably thought I had forgotten it was picture day, but usually that wasn't the case.  The first child to choose his picture outfit chose his cubscout uniform.  How adorable is that?  He wore it loud and proud.  Then came the cool/hero shirts.  Of course daughter #1 had to wear a plaid jumper.  I chose it, but she was happy to wear cute dresses. Daughter # 2 went with Halloween spiders all the way.

Y'all know it's a light sabre, right?

Okay, we might have forgotten pic day.

 Then one day I forgot to ask my youngest son what his favorite shirt was.  In the interest of time and ease, I dressed him in a traditional picture-day-polo and sent him off to school.  He didn't really argue, but when the picture came back the message was clear.  I asked, "Why aren't you smiling?"  He said, "I couldn't smile.  I didn't like my shirt."  And I never forgot again.  The end.

Bad shirt

Good shirt