The battle of the cutesy clothes

There’s something you have to understand about my husband.

Sure, he’s a “guy’s guy” and likes pizza and beer and sports games. But, he’s not one of those guys who scratches himself in public and stays oblivious to matters of taste and style.

Though his own clothes are pretty straightforward—a t-shirt and jeans, most of the time—he’s attentive to fashion and tells me straight-up when I’m wearing something that doesn’t work or makes me look fat.

It should have come as no surprise to me then that Cam is hyperaware of the clothes we put our babies in. I figure most of their clothes are going to get spit-up or pooped on, so I tend to grab whatever is at the top of the drawer.

Cam, on the other hand, goes to great lengths to choose the cutest and most color-coordinated outfits when dressing either of our children. He doesn’t have the guilt complex I have about putting clothes on the baby that were given as gifts. Gift or not, if he doesn’t like it, he’ll throw it out.

He has a point, you know. I learned (the hard way) that you don’t want to put an outfit on your kid that you hate, because chances are good they’ll do something cute that day and you’ll take a picture and you’ll forever have to remember that outfit. Case in point: The first time we ever put shoes on Caden, he was ten months old. He kept picking up his feet to examine the strange things attached to his legs. It was darling to watch, so we snapped about a dozen pictures. Unfortunately, he was wearing a detestable little giraffe onesie someone had given us (see the picture above).

I’d never liked it, but I put it on him that day so he could wear it at least once. Then I was going to get rid of it. Why I thought it was so important to wear that thing even once, we’ll never know. But we’ll forever remember it since we have so many photos from that priceless, must-be-remembered moment.

I guess the take-home lesson, especially when it comes to Chloe, is to chuck the stuff I don’t love. Baby clothes are cheap and easy to come by (people just keep giving us more and more). I guess I’ve finally realized it’s okay to hold out for the good stuff and donate the rest.

Needless to say, Cam is very happy I’m not going to taint any future baby memories with dreadful clothing!