I think we have entered the obsessive phase of toddlerhood. Anyone have advice on when this ends?
It started like this: Ages ago, I saw a pair of jeans in Baby Gap. Fake distressed, with fake patches, and an embroidered skull. I thought they were ridiculously cute, and so very very wrong, and too expensive at almost $30. So I waited for them to go on sale, since ridiculousness in toddler fashion is easier to bear at a discount.
In the meantime, enter Halloween.
The kid is still obsessed with Halloween. Nearly every day since November 1, as we leave our house, he looks around the neighborhood bereft of decorations and says with great heaviness: “Halloween is ALL GONE.”
It sounds like this: “awwllll gawwwwwne”
Finally, the skull pants go on sale, but the website is sold out of all except the tiniest size.
Commence calling every Gap in the greater Bay Area and eventually a salesperson tells me they may have a pair at their store in Santa Cruz.
Yes!
Score one pair, size 2T, for $21 and free shipping.
The pants arrive, the boy goes gonzo. He LOVES his “GULL” pants. He must wear them. If he is not wearing them because they are dirty he needs to know where they are. He needs to see them in the washer, in the dryer. He carries them around the house once they are clean again.
Commence re-calling Gap for a spare pair. Skull pants are ALL GONE.
Commence searching eBay. Bid on skull pants size 2T and WIN. Price of pants plus shipping? $30.
I’ve never actually done this before — the have one, wash one, thing. It feels like cheating somehow. Will he get upset if he finds out there are two pair? I know friends who do this with loveys. These skull pants are Jonah’s lovey.
Yesterday, we were shopping at a crafts store where the least loved Halloween leftovers were on sale for 90% off. We got Jonah a set of stickers: glittery skulls, bats, and witches shoes. He LOVES them. He puts them on paper, he puts them on his clothes, on the rug.
Guess who is thinking about heading back to the crafts store today for spares?
I’ve done that more times that I can count. Good luck!
I still haven’t outgrown that stage and I am 65. If I find a tee shirt I like I buy it in different colors and if it is black I buy 2 so each will be washed less and the the fading will take longer. When I was young I would wear the same things so often that my mother would call whatever it was my “Uniform”. He comes by this neurosis honestly. I think it is genetic. When his mother was 12 she wore the same sweatshirt and jeans every day for 2 years!
My son definitely went through a phase like this (it does get better… eventually). He had a t-shirt with a badger on it (local university mascot). He would have worn it every day, but somehow I managed to convince him that it needed to be washed and he could wear it again as soon as it was clean (don’t recall him being as obsessive as Jonah, but it’s been a few years so my memory may just be poor). I think it was about this time that I started giving him options of what to wear (“Oh, honey, the badger shirt isn’t clean, but you can wear either this shirt with a moose on it or this shirt with a truck on it.”). (Oh, and these days I just pick a shirt — he’s been okay with that again for some time.) I also had occasions where I had bought a shirt I thought he would love only for him to avoid it.
Oh, and I’m like Nana — I buy the same shirt in different colors, too
I hadn’t thought about buying 2 in black though. Hmmm…
My mom is a clothing genius, yes. I love the idea of being attached to a badger shirt, in general how they get so attached to stuff — I guess I’m weird!
(I don’t recall wearing jeans and a giant sweatshirt because I LOVED them but rather because they made a good flack suit for the battle that was my teenage years.)