Fashionista-in-the-making

Most of you know we let Stasa choose her own outfits now, which has been trying since she can take a long time to pick the perfect pieces, but we're all about choices and independence these days. And this girl comes up with some whackadoo ensembles most days (of course there is the rare day when she chooses a mostly normal outfit). Here are some of my favorites.

If you give a mouse a cookie

Lately I've been giving Stasa choices so she feels in control of something, but I'm learning that if I'm going to give her choices, I'm going to have to be okay with what she selects. I usually let her choose which yogurt she wants to eat, but somehow she got it in her head that the peach is Daddy's and the vanilla is Mommy's. No idea how she came up with that one because we both eat any and all yogurt, but she only wants "mommy yogurt" and while this isn't a big problem now, it will be when we run out of the vanilla. But then maybe she'll learn another lesson: you can't always get what you want.

I also let her choice which plate, utensil, and cup she wants and what she wants to drink with dinner. And recently I've been giving her full control over what she wears each day, which leads to some questionable outfits.
Exhibit A (and no she's not summoning a waiter or calling a cab):


She insisted on the long-sleeved pink shirt, pink sparkly skirt, and pink crocs. I almost said no to the long-sleeved shirt, but then thought if I'm going to really let her have control, let her have it. So I just told her that since it was hot outside, she had to wear the shirt with the sleeves up. She was totally cool with that as long as I wasn't making her take it off. Because who wouldn't want to wear a pink polka dotted shirt with a bow on it?

Exhibit B (I so wish I had a picture of her standing so you could get the full effect of this masterpiece):


This outfit was a gem. Pink Easter shirt that says "DAD'S GOOD EGG", pink camouflage panks, blue and yellow Easter socks, and black patent leather Mary Janes. My only alteration was to roll up the pants since it was like 150 degrees outside.

Unfortunately there are many problems with letting her choose her own attire. Mainly, the amount of time it takes her to make a decision and we just don't have the luxury of extra time on weekday mornings, especially when she decides to sleep in.

(Sidenote: Since I'm a pretty frugal person I always buy her clothes on sale, including socks. Well, you can get a huge bag of all white socks or you can pay more for individual pairs of patterned or colored socks. Guess which ones I bought? Mmmhmm. I also stupidly bought her that pair of blue and yellow Easter socks from the Target dollar bin. Of course now that she knows there are sock options, she doesn't want anything to do with her plain jane white socks. Dilemma.)

I'm thinking the way to solve the time issue is to have her select her clothes the night before. That way we can go through her entire selection process with less tears. I should start taking daily pictures of her ensembles. She's quite the creative one when pairing colors and patterns.

The "I do it" is going to be the death of me

I don't think I can count how many times each day I hear "I do it" or "Stasa do it" or my personal favorite, "I DO'S IT!" Anyone that knows Stasa knows she's Miss Independent, so her wanting to do everything herself should come as no surprise. And yet each morning I get frustrated because she insists on selecting her own outfit mostly because it's such a laborious process. First she touches all of her shirts, selects a few as finalists, chooses a winner, and then moves on to the shorts and skirts. After deliberating for what feels like forever, but is actually more like 5 minutes, she usually decides to chuck it all in favor of her current favorite dress: this green summer dress with random bunnies on it that we got for $0.25 at a yard sale. This morning I hid the bunny dress because I want daycare to know that she has more than just 1 outfit so she was forced to select something new and (after touching literally every dress she has) settled on her I <3 NY t-shirt dress.

The "I do it" is not limited to just her attire. It's heard during virtually every activity, including teeth brushing, table setting, car seat buckling, vacuuming...you get the picture. I suppose I should be grateful that she wants to help, but it can be so frustrating for everyone involved when she's not actually able to do the task herself. 

It begins...

Little Miss Independent has become Little Miss Stubborn. Yesterday evening while I was putting away her clean clothes she got into her shoe bin and rediscovered her Santa slippers from Natassa. She immediately walked over to me, handed me the slippers and sat down, feet in the air. They barely fit, but I managed to squeeze her piggies in them.

And off she went, happy as a clam, until it came time to put her pajamas on and the slippers had to come off. To appease her Tom put the stupid slippers back on her feet and she was instantly happy again. "Fine," I thought. "Let her sleep in the damn things." I mean they usually come off in her sleep anyway.

Imagine my surprise when they were still securely on her feet this morning. Boy, it was a lot of fun getting her dressed and trying to put real shoes on her feet. She was hysterically crying because mean mama wanted to put actual shoes on her feet instead of silly Santa slippers. I finally gave up and shoved the slippers back on.

STUBBORN. It's a Merkel and Taves trait, but there must be a mutant strain of Stubborn in our little sasspot, Stasa.