I used to have a lot of preconceived ideas of what type of mother I would be before I had Madeline. For example, back in the day if I were shopping at the grocery store and I saw a child in the grocery cart with a box of cereal in his lap that his parents had let him open and eat out of I would gasp in horror and think to myself, “My child will never do that!” Now if you ever happen to catch me shopping with Madeline I can guarantee you that 9 times out of 10 she is eating something that we have not yet purchased! I won’t go into the long list of other parenting practices I was going to enlist because most of you who know me would laugh at how miserably I have failed on many of them.
The subject of my blog today is cartoon character apparel. I was NOT going to have a child running around in silly cartoon character t-shirts. I mean, I would rather die than be caught wearing a Dora the Explorer t-shirt, so why in the world would I dress my child in one? Isn’t Madeline a reflection of me? Well, if there is one thing I have learned in parenthood it is that making your child happy is a pretty darn good feeling, so I broke down today.
Today we were at Babies ‘R Us shopping and there was a whole rack of different Elmo attire. It just so happens that Madeline is in love with “Melmo” (as she lovingly calls him), so she was pretty excited to see all of the different ways she could adorn herself with that furry little critter. I tried to convince her that a pink baseball cap would be pretty cool, but she liked the pink Elmo onsie.
When I asked her if she thought we should buy it I got a quick, “Yeah, Yeah” with an eager head nod. So, I bought her the Elmo shirt. I have to say it is pretty cute for being a “Cartoon Character” t-shirt, so it wasn’t too hard for me to do.
So, there is yet another thing for me to scratch off my “Things I will never let my child do” list. I will tell you though, that I am holding pretty firm to the idea that I will not become one of those moms who runs around in Winnie the Pooh overalls. If my child wants to wear them I guess I can handle it, but if you ever catch me stocking up on officially licensed Disney wear please grab a hold of me and hold an intervention. Thank you!
1 Comment
March 1, 2008 at 11:38 pm
Funny! I’m the same way. I never thought I’d dress my kids in character apparel either. So far I haven’t bought any for the kids myself, but we have received some from friends/family for holidays. I’ve broken down & let the kids wear the stuff and it is fun to see how happy it makes them. But I’m with you, I don’t ever want to catch myself wearing character apparel. Let’s make a pact, if I see you wearing something, I’ll make you change, you do the same for me.