Guide to Kids' Styling

     I feel like deep inside me there might be the soul of a creative person, unfortunately I’m in the body of someone who draws like a kindergartner, sings like an injured walrus and can’t seem to make anything out of Playdoh that isn’t at least slightly phallic. The closest thing I’ve found to “my artistic medium” is putting outfits together. For awhile I was fortunate enough to be paid to do that, but life changes, and here I am, unemployed, surrounded by yogurt-flinging snot-nosed small people, likely wearing sweatpants if I’ve mustered the zeal to wear any pants at all.

     I’m a problem solver, so to correct or at least overshadow my sad state of style I focus all of my energy on outfitting my kids. Sure, they still have unruly, sweaty hair and faces covered in food from 3 days ago, but somewhere in my eternally expanding laundry pile lay the remnants of a handful of pretty adorable outfits. You may look at me (or my carefully concocted online persona) and wonder, how does she do it? Well I’m here today to share some Kid Wardrobing Tips with you.

     Okay, first rule of shopping - SHOP IN OUTFITS. This applies to you too. Don’t buy a flowing boho top that catches your eye, or a fierce pair of neon ikat print patent sandals because they’re a steal, unless you have 2-3 things already in your closet that you’ll wear with them. Or, if restraint isn’t a priority on this particular outing, buy 2-3 things to wear with aforementioned expenditure at the time of purchase. This makes it easier to appear stylish versus looking like you fell into a clearance rack. It also makes it less likely that you'll spend your morning staring at your closet wondering what to wear.

     Kids are fun/expensive because every time the weather changes it’s time for a new wardrobe. As soon as I think we have enough clothes and I can’t possibly shop anymore, we have the first 70 degree day of spring and I'm faced with a closet full of corduroy overalls and cable knit sweaters, with maybe one pair of board shorts that now fit like hot pants shoved in a far corner of a forgotten drawer. Silver lining: Needing a whole wardrobe at once gives you the opportunity to practice creating a functional wardrobe. 

     Here’s my MO - I surf kids sites and snap screen shots of clothing I like. Next I use the app PicCollage to see how the pieces I like work together. Often I realize that something I really love doesn’t match any of the pants or shoes I think would work. To get more bang for your buck you'll want your outfits to be interchangeable, which is a lot easier to see in a wardrobe storyboard than it is in multiple online shopping carts. Furthermore, the storyboard visualization is IMO largely preferable to attempting to create a coherent look in a messy store in the mall by digging through a mountain of wrong sizes, trying to corral two wild animal children running opposite directions after being chased by kiosk hand lotion guys while aloof salespeople avoid eye contact. F that noise. 

     I enjoy this, or I wouldn't do it, but a bonus is that putting a little bit of time into planning makes it easier for me to find good deals. If you don't have or are unwilling to spend the cash on whatever the mannequins are wearing, it can be really hard to piece together outfits from the sale rack. By the time items are marked down the coordinating pieces and sizes are often long gone. But if you can source from the whole internet's worth of retailers you can get well thought out looks at bargain prices! Boom. 

My son is 4 so I can still buy him metrosexual floral print t-shirts and Birkenstocks if  I want to.  These pieces are from Nordstrom.com (old habits die hard) and are made by Peek! and Tea Collection, respectively.

As much as I love shoes, I've found that buying one good pair a season that match everything is the best bet. While my heart flutters from those Birks above, in my experience you can't beat Keens for a practical summertime every day kid shoe.
The obnoxiously loud lobster shirt is something my sea-creature obsessed son would do flips over, lest you start to believe I only have my own interests in mind here.

So this is the example of a board that showed me something that wouldn't work. After I'd made a couple outfit pages I was left with these pieces that I really like individually, but just don't have the versatility of the other stuff. We wear our pants 1-3 times a week and doubling up on star sweats would make Holden "the kid with those flashy star sweats." So these pieces sadly but smartly get the ax.

There are SO MANY darling girl's outfits in the world. I've found that when dressing Eden I don't always get the same versatility out of her clothes as I do with Holden's. A lot of her outfits aren't as easily interchangeable, and I think it's largely because I love the girly outfits so much that I can't accept less being more...

These pieces (besides the awesome and highly recommended Freshly Picked moccasins) are all from my friend Claire's web boutique minimartkids.com. She's done a masterful job curating pieces that are often gender neutral, and have a childlike whimsy without looking like a cartoonish stork vomited baby pink all over her shop.

This is my one girl storyboard where it's easy to mix and match. I think if you have core pieces that easily coordinate it's always okay to have an outfit or two that stands alone. For Edie's looks I sourced from gap.com, nordstrom.com, bodenusa.com and minimartkids.com.

     If you've made it to the end of this post I'm guessing you're either thinking "you're a vacuous freak with too much time on your hands" or hopefully some variant of "what a cute idea, I can't wait to make my own!" in which case, I'd love to see what you come up with. I'm available and enthusiastic about talking kid style, your style, or really any topic at all with you any time!

The Pros and Cons of Co-Sleeping

I co-sleep. It’s okay if you don’t. My kids are welcome in my bed but I totally get why families would make different choices. Nonethelesss, I will share my biased and at times sarcastic pros and cons of bed-sharing with you now:

Con:

My husband and I can’t have sex in our bed. 

Pro:

My husband and I don’t have boring “well we’re both in bed, might as well do it” sex. We both possess the ingenuity to overcome the “obstacle” of an occupied bed with gusto. The bed is great for missionary, the rest of the house is awesome for other stuff. 

Con:

Children create a spousal cuddling barrier. Occasionally I’d like to fall asleep in the cozy nook of my husband’s arm.

Pro:

No pressure to cuddle. You’d think more bodies = less space = more cuddling, but your kids just want to be near you, they don’t need to embrace you. I’m a stomach sleeper, which is not at all conducive to cuddling. Pre-kids, rolling away from my husband to happily sleep on my stomach made me an asshole, now it's just part of being a loving parent.

Con: 

TOENAILS. About 5 days post-trim my children sprout dagger talons fit for pterodactyls. If you forget to trim those nails there will be a 2:00a.m. reenactment of Psycho under your sheets.

Pro:

BABY SKIN. If silk and cashmere and heated blankets and every pure and good memory you’ve ever had culminated in some sort of lovechild, that being would be almost as magical as the skin of a sleeping child. If you could cuddle up to a doll-sized flower petal that emanated warmth and angelic goodness, wouldn’t you seize the opportunity?

Con:

Unsafe co-sleeping: If you have a ton of blankets, a ton of pillows, a super soft cushy bed, and/or you are a smoker, intoxicated, sedated, or sleep heavily to the point you are totally unaware of the precious bundle of joy lying next to you, it’s not safe to co-sleep. If you’re sharing the bed with someone who is any of those things it may not be safe to co-sleep. The younger your infant is, the truer this is. 

Pro:

In my experience as a mother, my awareness is so ferociously tuned in to the well-being of my children it makes me feel like I have a f!#%ing superpower. I thought I was a heavy sleeper, but I leap out of bed, ready for action, at the softest murmur. After years of sleeping with 2 kids, the concern that I could roll over on to my own baby seems totally ridiculous. Research shows breastfeeding mothers naturally co-sleep on their side, creating a safe pocket for their babies to nestle into. Sleeping near your baby syncs your breath and actually decreases the risk of SIDS when done safely. 

Con:

Breastfeeding at night. Some people tell me their baby started sleeping through the night (without eating) as early as (insert whatever number here) months. My one year old still nurses a couple times a night. This interferes with my stomach sleeping which occasionally bums me out.

Pro:

Dream feeding. Dream feeding is hippy speak for breastfeeding at night time. It doesn’t require sitting up, or picking up a baby, or even staying awake. At our house, the baby fusses, I’m roused immediately, pull out a boob, the baby attaches, we both fall back asleep. When I worked 50 hours a week dream feeding was a way to bond and keep my milk supply strong. Plus, it turns out, the milk mothers produce in the nighttime often contains elevated levels of tryptophan (the stuff in turkey that makes us sleepy), which helps regulate sleep, establishing healthy circadian rhythms, and essentially teaching night-nursers that nighttime is sleeptime.

Con:

My kids rely on me to sleep. They rely on me to comfort their fears and provide them with security. They do not realize they are utterly alone in a sometimes cold and horrible world. 

Pro:

My kids know they can rely on me. I’m their mom all day long, then, at night time, when they have physical needs like warmth or hunger, or emotional needs, like a finger to hold, or a soothing touch, I’m still on duty. My hope is they can rely on me as long as they need to in order to secure a worldview where they’re loved, they’re safe, and their feelings at all hours of the day are important and valid.

Con:

Who knows how long this madness will go on. If I had a nickel for everyone who’s warned me “If you don’t get them out of your bed by ____ months, you never will!” I’d probably have the money to convert my entire bedroom into one big bed (so we wouldn’t have to squeeze the 4 of us into a mere king size).

Pro:

This too shall pass. Even the most avid co-sleeper usually chooses to sleep on his or her own by the onset of puberty (13ish). I know it’s hard to fathom that one day they’ll recoil from our touch, that jumping into our arms will be replaced with stiff side-hugs, the endless stream of consciousness speech will morph into shrugs and grunts, and we’ll remember the way their bare sticky skin felt pressed against ours in the middle of a summer night with a longing so intense we’d trade 20 years of sleeping soundly for one more night to rock them to sleep. But that day is coming. So tonight, my bed is a family bed. 

I know I’m missing a lot of pros, and a lot of cons! Please feel free to share yours in the comments.

Mommy Metamorphis

     Last spring my life changed drastically enough that if I wasn’t on social media (and a horrible liar) I could have told a believable story about entering a witness protection program. I went from being a city loving, Designer label obsessed, full time working career woman, to moving to a town 3 hours away from the nearest Trader Joe’s and staying home nearly 24/7 to sing nursery rhymes and read 5-paged board books. Turns out you can shed your caterpillar skin for butterfly wings more than once in your life. I view this big life change as Part Deux of what we’ll call my Mom Metamorphosis. 

Can Kids Be A-Holes Too?

     I follow a parenting blog that annoys the hell out of me. I completely agree with the philosophy, and find much of the information presented helpful, so I’ve always wondered what it is that rubs me the wrong way. I figured it out one day. An article was posted along the lines of “Your baby isn’t the asshole, you are,” and it targeted the evil parents who use words like asshole to describe their children for behaving like children. I read the humorless, angry article and my initial thought was “maybe you’re the asshole, lady.” Was I feeling defensive or ashamed because I have admittedly used the term when writing or talking about my children? I spent a few minutes contemplating how much of an asshole I am. I could fill a large bucket with ways I do indeed qualify as an asshole, but tweeting that “I can’t tell if my baby is teething or just an asshole” isn’t really one of them. What bothered me wasn't just the need to defend the use of profanity in reference to my children, it was that this lady was attacking my right to take parenting lightly.

You're not an asshole, but your behavior is reminiscent of the way an asshole might behave in this situation.

     Do I think my baby is an asshole? Do I think any baby or child is even capable of being an asshole?

Squashed Hopes

     I made squash for the first time today. It didn’t go as I’d hoped. Now I will pause while you compose yourself from the eruption of laughter that ensued upon connecting the title of this post with the content. 

     The kitchen is not my natural habitat. My natural habitat is a trendy downtown loft apartment, lounging on a blue velvet sofa drinking sparkling wine bought off an eye level shelf in the grocery store. If I’d remained childless my diet would probably still consist of the two major food groups: thai take out and styrofoam cupped pasta with powdered food-alternative flavoring. I was totally cool with not being very domestic, it was an important piece in my arsenal of adorable idiosyncrasies, along with watching boring old Audrey Hepburn movies and talking about how repulsive I found any activity where heels weren’t appropriate. You know, cool, modern, downtown girl stuff. Very Carrie Bradshaw. 

Autonomy for Moms in 30 Minutes or Less

Being a full-time mommy at home puts you into a strange time vortex. I still remember what it felt like to work full time with a baby, and I frequently find myself marveling at how busy I feel as a stay-at-homer. The vortex feels especially pronounced and indescribable when people ask what you've been up to lately, and time stops while you have a conversation with yourself in your head,

Facebook Birthday Posting Guidelines

Ah, the Facebook birthday message - the new way for family, friends, past co-workers and people who never talked to you in High School to make you feel special. As someone who recently had a birthday IRL and on FB, I’d like to share the following insights:

        1. When someone writes “happy birthday” and nothing else it is basically the Facebook birthday version of the middle finger.

The Problem with My 28th Birthday

     I turned 28 on Monday. I spent a lovely day with my kids and my darling mother who traveled all the way from civilization to see me and make my birthday special. She brought me sweet gifts she knew I’d love, helped me to celebrate, not feel too lonely, and showered my children with treats, toys and love like only a grandma can. I should just stop writing now, but that’s not my style, and neither is having perfectly enjoyable birthdays. Instead, my birthday is a cautionary tale about high expectations.

     Most of the time I’m pretty content not being the most important person alive,

They can't all be good days.

     I woke up in a bad mood today. Despite going to bed at 9:00 last night, I hardly slept. Sometime overnight my usually comfy (albeit crowded) bed morphed into a lumpy sac of potatoes and my pillow into lava rock. Co-sleeping with my 6’2” husband, 3 year old and 8 month old doesn’t help. The baby had one of those nights where she needed to breastfeed not several times a night, but actually sleep attached to me, preventing any movement on my part lest I move her and elicit a window rattling howl. This night was heavy on the tossing and turning for everyone (imagine our bed as a rock tumbler with 4 rocks ranging from 20 to 210 pounds), and even included some sudden Rottweiler-like jaw clamps mid-nursing from 2 needle-like baby teeth. The moment the ethereal morning sunshine peered through my curtains, I heard the birds sing and longed to stretch my arms over my head and savor the magic of being alive, but instead I buried my face in my pillow and thought “Ah, %&$!.” 

No worries, I hate personal space anyway.

 

Cool Mom Resolutions

  I was never meant to be a regular mom. If I even had kids, I would be different. I’d be cool, because it’s not healthy to make your whole identity about someone else, especially someone who eats their boogers in the checkout aisle at the grocery store. Flash forward 3 years and there I was, pregnant with my 2nd, unshowered wearing yoga pants tucked into my knock-off Uggs, pushing a stroller to Starbucks immersed in a conversation about home pureed baby food as my former self rolled over in her grave, careful not to smear Chanel mascara on her silk-lined coffin. 

Really, I think I preserved my cool pretty well after my first was born. I went back to work after 12 weeks and was forced to presume the identity of someone who had a life beyond spit-up drenched machine-washables. Things started to deteriorate during my 2nd pregnancy, then got serious when we relocated to Walla Walla where I have the tremendous blessing of staying home with my kids and am relieved of the pressure to impress anyone. I know no one, and my only friends are my devastatingly cool nieces and sister-in-law who are forced to hang out with me at our weekly family night. I’ve lost myself in a wilderness of crusty sippy cups, slobbery baby kisses and the involuntary but perpetual question “why bother?” Why make the bed when we’re just going to sleep in it later? Why change out of pajamas when no one will see me anyway? Why wash my hair when it’s just going to stay in this ugly messy bun? If you’re feeling as clinically depressed as I am after reading that I think the answer is clear…we bother because not bothering means taking up residence right around the corner from a high-dose Zoloft prescription. 

In an effort to restore some dignity and keep some dollars out of Pfizer’s pocket I’m publicly resolving to the following efforts: