This morning I came downstairs to discover Grant fully dressed, but Anne cavorting about in her pajamas.
“What’s up with the PJs?” I asked Mark. “She’s not sick, is she?”
“No, but all her pants are in the dryer and they’re just not dry yet.”
Ok.
A look at the clock showed we still had an hour before we had to be out the door. Plenty of time for a load of laundry to dry. Right as I finished my breakfast, the dryer stopped. I opened the door to find … a load of sopping wet clothes.
Right.
I started the dryer again, setting the timer for 60 minutes, and said a silent prayer that things would dry and Anne would not be sent to school pantsless.
Because that would be bad. Bad in a setting-her-up-for-therapy-for-life kind of way.
Mark came back downstairs to leave for work, and naturally, asked why Anne still wasn’t dressed.
“The clothes still aren’t dry. Also, they smell kind of funny. Go take a whiff.”
He opened the dryer door. “These aren’t even remotely close to dry! They’d been in there for 55 minutes already!”
“What? I figured you’d just started them.”
“No.” He fiddled with the buttons and turned the heat up to high. “We need to get somebody out here to service this thing.”
“Agreed. In the meantime….” I gestured at Anne.
He shrugged. “Maybe she can wear tights? I don’t know, I’ve got to get to work.”
Tights? As pants? Perhaps he meant leggings?
So Mark, fully pantsed, disappeared, leaving me to deal with this potentially life-altering ordeal.
“Come on, Anne, let’s go find you something to wear,” I called, and went upstairs to rummage through her dresser.
She was hot on my heels, and the minute I opened the drawer I knew we were in trouble.
She went right for it. THE outfit. The one we try to let her wear only around the house. It’s not that it’s not cute. It’s different. It’s very Lily Pulitzer (only much brighter). And, unfortunately, with a giant multi-colored unicorn gracing the top.
The leggings are hot pink with chartreuse polka dots. The top is chartreuse with short puffed sleeves, then long hot pink sleeves coming down from there to give it a layered look. And, let us not forget, the pièce de résistance, the unicorn. Anne loves it, because it’s soft and furry. In fact, while wearing this outfit, she’s prone to invite people to pet her chest.
Again, not good.
I tried to talk her out of it. I had a perfectly cute pink sweater and a bevy of leggings to match, but she was having none of it. She wanted her unicorn, dammit. This is the point where I began to really regret giving up coffee for the first time, because it would have been the easiest thing in the world to just tip the mug right onto the outfit…or perhaps not, because before I knew what was happening, she had her PJs off and the unicorn on.
Did I mention this outfit is bright? Brighter than your average Lily Pulitzer? Not good for those of us with migraines.
I was shielding my eyes when Anne put her hands on her hips and said, in her best I-am-going-to-be-hell-as-a-teenager voice, “Mommy, when I first wore this outfit Daddy said something really mean.”
“Oh, really? What did he say? Do you want to put a nice sweater over that?”
“I don’t want a sweater. He said something that really hurt my feelings.”
“What was that?”
“He said, he said … that it looked like the Easter Bunny pooped on me.”
I tried to laugh silently, y’all, I really did, but I was shaking and crying. Fortunately, Anne was so introspective I don’t think she noticed.
“Honey, you just have to learn you can’t always listen to everything Daddy says.”
She sighed. “I know. He’s such a boy.”
After I dropped the kids off at school, I immediately called Mark.
“I took Anne upstairs with me to pick out her outfit, and she was right there when I opened the drawer,” I said. “Two guesses what she’s wearing.”
“Oh, NO!!!”
“Yep. She saw it, and there was no stopping it.”
“I bet her teachers have headaches.”
“Well, the strange part is what she said when she put it on. She said the first time she wore it you told her …” I started laughing… “that it looked like the Easter Bunny pooped on her!”
Mark howled. “No, no, no!” he said, when he could finally breathe. “I am quite confident that what I said was that it looked like the Easter Bunny threw up on her.”
“Oh, that’s much better!”
We both laughed until I was almost in tears again. Then I had a thought.
“Maybe someone will make fun of it and she won’t wear it anymore,” I said.
“We can hope. Obviously it doesn’t work if we do it.”
We’ll be awaiting our Parents of the Year Awards in the mail, people.
SOOO glad someone else's husband makes those type comments to their children regarding their “strange” outfits. I'm quite thankful my girls have their own brand of confidence, because their dad doesn't hold back. My Anne has a thing for hot pants….her dad, not impressed.
Yep, it wasn't going to stop her at all. I told Mark later, “You need to remember that she remembers EVERYTHING you say about her appearance.” Although, to her credit, she seems to have associated his comment with the outfit, not with herself (which is how he meant it). But I've got to train that boy about how we speak to young girls…..and perhaps clean out her closet.
Awesome…I love that you sent her to school hoping that someone would make fun of her! LOL
“The Outfit” Pretty sure most every kid has one they wish their kid never got or saw again. Gotta love kids and their innate sense of self.