I love my children. I really do. I love the way they fill my life, teach me, remind me, and make me a better person. Each of them is different, and I still feel I am on the road to discovering their differences and unique personalities. Every day is different and interesting in some way.
But.
One of the few personality traits they all share makes me crazy. It seems to provide no end of frustration for them or myself, and that's pickiness. They are all very picky about what they eat, what they wear, what they do with their time, where they're sitting in the car, how they're playing a game, how close, or not close they are sitting with each other. It's just crazy. I don't know if my kids are closer to the extreme end of things, or if they're just normal kids and I need to take a chill pill. Probably the latter. I read a book recently where the author encouraged trying to relabel a negative trait like this into a positive trait. Being very discerning, discriminating, having an eye for detail, knowing exactly what you want, etc. This still is not helping me when Gordon screams that the socks he's wearing don't go as high up his leg as he wants, or the hair clip Jilly's wearing isn't one centimeter higher diagonally on the side of her head as she'd like.
Clothes are one of the biggest battles we fight. I have learned to not care if they match at all, how many layers are worn or not worn, or how they wear their hair. The only rules we have are it has to be clean, modest, appropriate for the event, and on family picture day or weddings, I get full, total, and complete reign over clothes and hair. The girls understand this and were surprisingly cooperative on our family photo shoot this summer. Gordon didn't care yet. Now he does.
Evelyn's favorite clothes are t-shirts, leggings, and a skirt. She'll wear blue jeans when the leggings are dirty, which wouldn't have happened last year in Kindergarten. So it seems she's relaxing her expectations a little (for which I am very thankful).
Jilly has about 6 pieces of clothing she loves to wear, and if I suggest she has to wear anything else, we can be in full nuclear meltdown in 30 seconds or less. She'll wear these favorite things until they are filthy dirty, only then are they allowed to be washed. She'll keep digging them out of the laundry. Don't get me started on fixing her hair.
Gordon only wants to wear blue jeans, even when it's 85 degrees outside. He's not so picky about his shirts (yet), and of all the socks he owns, he only wants to wear 2 pairs of them, and one favorite pair of shoes anywhere. He's my only child that matches most of the time.
This pickiness came raining down on me yesterday when I was getting dressed for church. Evelyn wanted to help me pick something to wear. She would pull something out, and I had an excuse for not wearing nearly everything she pulled out of the closet. That's when I told her, "you know where you guys got your finickiness about clothes from - me."
Ben isn't exactly easy-going about what he wears either. Yay for genetic inheritance!
So beloved children, someday when you have your own kids, and you call me in complete frustration about your crazy children who want to wear the same shirt for a 72 hour stretch (as I have done with both sets of parents), I will listen sympathetically, and wish you loads of patience. When I hang up the phone, I will smile wistfully, thinking on these fun/frustrating days. And be a little bit glad I don't have to deal with pre-school pickiness anymore!
5 comments:
Oh funny. I don't think your kids are crazy - because several of the things you mentioned I'm thinking in my head, "check. check. and check!" So yes, I feel your pain. Kaden would go through phases where he would only wear jeans...and then it got to be summer and so I hid all of his pants, and socks. That got him out of that habit, but all my boys have had something similar that drives my crazy. Yes, they'll grow out of it and you will laugh about it one day. :)
That is crazy. I hear about this with kids all the time. My kids have their own crazy things, but being picky about clothes is not one of them. Not one of my kids have ever really cared what they wear. They are happy with whatever I choose pretty much all the time. My problem is that they always want me to pick out their clothes for them. I am hoping that I can somehow teach them that skill.
I hear people who dress their second graders and I'm like, where did your kid come from? It's normally around 18 months that my kids start obsessing about clothing. Hudson wore that stupid white church shirt until he outgrew it and would pull it out of the laundry totally filthy. I feel your pain. The melt downs are ridiculous. I'm sorry our kids are so discriminating.
Yeah, Brogan doesn't care what he wears. Sometimes he makes a request or says "I don't like this shirt." but nothing like what you're going through. He's not very picky about much. My sister deals with this with her kids though. She was like that at that age too. I wasn't. Her son insists on wearing colors that coordinate with whatever super hero he likes best at the time. He also likes his shirts to be the same color as his pants, but she doesn't always let him. She is kind of picky herself. OCD does run in her husband's family and she is a little concerned that her oldest son has it (he also is freaked out by germs too much). They are also SUPER picky eaters, but she also doesn't try to make them eat what they don't want so I think she is digging her own hole on that one.
The first paragraph where you mentioned their picky eating made me laugh because it reminded me of you. I remember one time you kinda freaked out because I bought some less than perfect asparagus from the grocery store, even though you weren't going to be eating it and it was impossible to get anything better in Rexburg. The funniest part is that you later came and apologized and felt very sorry and that you were just a little snobbish when it came to produce because of growing up on a farm. I found the whole thing incredibly funny. This post reminded me of that side of you. It made me laugh. I have to say though that if your kids inherited those things from you and Ben then it is likely that they also inherited all the other wonderful things that make the two of you so amazing. They'll be ok. Incredibly responsible, mature, helpful, loving, intelligent etc etc etc.
Okay this post just made me miss you so much. I miss how we use to talk about these things on the playground while those said "picky" children would run around crazy with mine! Blake has started wearing two layers of clothing to school. Shorts and t-shirt and then on top work out pants and a long sleeve shirt and then his laker hat. Special! He knows Wednesday is the day he has to wear jeans and a nice polo and the rest of the week he looks like he's ready to work out.
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