All dressed up!

Abhay loves to dress up! Im not exaggerating when I say that his style statement changes every season just like haute couture trends! It all began as early as 18 months! First there was the “White pants phase” when all the pants he wore had to white!! Unable to find all-white pants in the US, Abhay had his pants specially sent in from Bangalore. When any of our relatives or friends in India made travel plans to the US, they were sure get a call from my parents with a request to carry a package for their darling grandson...package full of white pants!! (The practice of parceling clothes from Bangalore continues to this day….my friends who returned from India recently will stand witness to this!!) Anyway, after going through so much trouble to get what he wanted, I couldn’t believe it when the next fashion trend at home was the “No Pants Phase” when my two year old son was in a mood for only shorts! Then came the “Layered look” when he would be caught wearing 4 to 5 shirts at one time….taking off each layer as the day went by!!! There was a time when his favorite pass time was pulling out all his pants from the closet and spreading them one by one on the floor! This is when I began to get concerned ….is this normal? As if this were not enough, my little one is a stickler for brands! He wants Thomas and Friends innerwear, Thomas T-shirt, Thomas jacket, etc. Did he skip the early childhood phase and zoom up straight to pre-teens?

Abhay and his pants, my son is going to hate me for uploading this when he grows up!

So I was glad that I went to the library last evening despite the bad weather to attend the family story time with Abhay where the theme was clothing! I found a wonderful book by an author whose children’s books I love, “Naked Mole Rat gets Dressed” by Mo Willems. Wilbur belongs to a species called rat moles who normally don’t wear clothes. Wilbur however loves to dress up and sees nothing wrong with it. The other rat moles are disgusted with his taste and get him to conform to their ways. They try to reason out with him that naked mole rats don’t wear clothes to which Wilbur coolly asks "why not"? At last, they appeal to the oldest and greatest grand-pah rat mole who ponders over Wilbur’s question and surprisingly seconds the same! Soon Wilbur is not the only one with clothes on!! Abhay loved looking at Wilbur as he tried on different looks from formal wear to sportswear! I felt no one could understand Wilbur better than my little metrosexual! ‘Well, what’s wrong if he loves clothes and wants to look good, right?’ -I thought. I am not so sure now, as this morning when I was about to drop him to school, my four year old fashion police, raised his eyebrows looking at my track pants (I’d planned to hit the gym on my way back) and said “ You can’t drop me to school wearing that!!”