How Do You Dress a Girl?

I’m not sure what other stay-at-home parents find stressful, but by far, without a doubt the most aggravating part of any day is dressing my daughter.  Since she was first born I have been completely overwhelmed by all of the possible clothing options and combinations I’ve had to learn.

Have you ever heard of tights? I’ve got no idea what they are; all I have figured out is that they are tight and impossible to get on the legs of a squirming little girl.  The one upside is that she can’t pull off her socks when she is wearing them because they are basically two big socks that go up to her waste. But that doesn’t mean she won’t try, I could spend hours watching her try to pull them off - good times. 

That brings me to skirts, what in the world is the point of a skirt on a baby?  They are basically just expensive cloth that wraps around a diaper, not to mention, if teenage Ruthie tries to go out in skirts as short as the ones I see my wife dressing her in… Well let’s just say that she won’t be getting very far out of my front door dressed like that!

On to matching, to start you need to know that I hate picking out my own clothes and can barely match my own slacks to a shirt.  I hate any sort of plaid because I never know what color shirt will match and forget about fatigues, aside from not really being cool enough to pull it off, my instinct would probably be to match it to something plaid. 

When presented with the unending wardrobe that is Ruthie’s closet, I’ve got no idea where to start and for the first four months of her life you could always tell when I had dressed her. She would have been in some sort of androgynous Liz Lemmon-esque outfit of brown pants with a white onesie.  Somewhere along the way I figured out that everything matches brown pants and stuck with it and would occasionally, on special occasions, substitute some sort of pink sweater for the onesie.  In addition, I could never figure out what to do with dresses.  Do they require a onesie underneath? Does it matter what color it is? Should she wear tights with a dress? After about five minutes up against the multitude of dresses, colored tights, sox and onesies I would basically fall apart into a nervous twitching mess bent over on the floor covered in pink tights, purple onesies and yellow sun dresses.

The best morning for me is one where my amazing wife has surprised me and set out the kid’s clothes the night before.  It’s like a blessing straight from above and an additional thirty minutes of pain and confusion has been taken from my day.  One day, I’m told she’ll be able to dress herself and she can have it.  The second, this young lady begins asserting herself it’ll be right into the wardrobe we go.  You want independence, take it – I’m through!