Matchy Matchy

My mom is a BIG fan of matching outfits for the kids. Rick and I are not fans of the idea and value individuality instead, but we humor her occasionally. Our most recent adventure to the Nature Museum was such an instance where we gave in just to make DD happy... and because Anna insisted it would be cool for Ada to dress just like her. Did I say JUST like her? I mean EXACTLY alike.

Same pink shirt with a sparkly heart on it, same black pants, and same pink and white princess shoes, complete with the same white hoodie. Okay, so they weren’t exactly the same sizes, but you get my point. The white hoodie is another issue I have which I’ll touch on briefly…

I strongly dislike and discourage white clothing for kids. Period. My mom, again, is a HUGE fan of the basics. She buys basic t-shirts and pants for the kids so they have their base wardrobes, just in case. My problem with this is that a)kids don’t need “base wardrobes” and b)kids can’t, and shouldn’t be made to, keep white clean and c)I as their mother and primary washer of the laundry, shouldn’t be made to spend my precious time treating and scrubbing stains out of white anything. In my opinion, white is not a color for babies unless it is for fancy dresses for special occasions. I love my mom, but we disagree on this point, always have, likely always will unless she comes to her senses.

In defense of my mother, she does have a small point of wisdom when it comes to this whole matchy matchy thing. Rick and I both admitted openly today, with minor discomfort, that it was a lot easier to pick out our kids amongst all of the kids playing on the tree house exhibit at the museum because we only had to look for one outfit. As an added bonus, the WHITE hoodies really stood out since our kids were the ONLY ones wearing white. Coincidence? I think not.

To make things interesting and a bit more challenging for us, Ada and Anna took their white hoodies off at one point. It was harder to find the pink shirts in the crowd, but again, still easier to look for two of the same shirts rather than two different ones.

And to make things fun, just before we started gathering our things to leave, Anna came over and put her white hoodie back on and then went to find Ada. Rick came over to help me pack up and said, “Where’s Anna?” We quickly found Ada in her pink shirt but then struggled for a minute to find Anna. Then I saw a flash of white coming down the slide and all of my worries subsided. Rick couldn’t find her because he was programmed to look for the pink shirt and didn’t know she had put the white one back on. Maybe this is why the bad guys in movies always change clothes to disguise themselves? Hmmm…

Moral of the story: If you are going to a place where your kids could be in a crowd and you’ll need to find them quickly, dress them in matching colors to make things easier, but know that you are being dorky. If you are dressing them in layers and already having them match, dork-out all the way and have the layers all match so you don’t have to re-train yourself to look for another color in case they add or remove a shirt.