Dressing a baby...

isn't like dressing a dollie or your cat or dog or even the Thanksgiving turkey. No, dressing a baby is one of those things that new moms especially enjoy. The baby has no rights, cannot protest (in words at least) or run away and hide in the closet or garden shed until mummsy's desire to dress said baby in some cute little snookums outfit passes.

Many of us, pre-baby, will protest that we will not dress our innocent little child in any outlandish, goofy-looking, cutsey-poo outfits, but that promise disappears like mist on a lake as soon as we are home from the hospital and we start trotting out all the cute little outfits that friends and family have given us or that we have found on our own. We have froggie, duckie, goosie, puppy, kitty, bear-y and other assorted animal get ups at our disposal. We also have outfits that are way too big for our newborn, but we are driven to dress him or her up in everything in the dresser drawers and closets of the nursery.

If we really want to think ahead to possible, future means of subduing (or should I say blackmailing) a child, especially a tween or teen, who has left the I-love-mommy-no-matter-what stage and entered the I-only-love-you-when-I-need-to-go-to-the-mall-or-get-the-car-keys mode, then we'll store up all the "ammunition" we can. So we get out the camera and dress and click 'til our hearts content or our baby is worn out and falls asleep. I had a friend who did this with every baby outfit given to her first-born. She then sent a copy of the photo to the person whose gift it was so they could see how "cute" the outfit and the baby were together. Cute is a word that every parent discovers loses is luster as a child enters the two-digit age group. Clothes can be cool or awesome or rad, but they cannot be cute and leave the house on the body of your child.

My youngest son is a case in point. Of my three children, he was the easiest to dress up and I was able to do it for quite a while longer with him than with the other two before he reluctantly complained. His (and my) day of reckoning came when I laid out his church clothes and he put on everything but the very cutsey-poo sweater I had bought him in Rome. It was red (a favorite color of his) with a big teddy bear, fuzzy emblem dead center on the front. He put it on and then lowered his head as if I'd just pinned the scarlet letter on him, and he whispered, in a very quiet voice, that he didn't want to wear a sweater with a bear on it. (His nickname was Bear.) I had to ask him to repeat what he said loudly enough so I could hear him. He did and I recoiled knowing that I had run out of children whom I could dress up, photograph and publicly humiliate with my need for childish, gimmicky fashion statements. My youngest changed his sweater to something plain and "more mature" looking, and I went looking for our cat. I also went a little overboard that year with our turkey. I just couldn't resist those very cute little white "boots" that go on each drumstick and a flouncy, lacy suturing at the neck cavity to keep the dressing from bursting out. The turkey did not protest, but wore his bib and tucker with great aplomb. The cat is still missing....