Logic vs. Fashion

Mild. Easy-going. Easy in general. That is Rayna. She has always been like that. She's getting older though, and she has recently discovered that she has a whole slew of preferences! And words to express them! It's great and everything, but I think the power is going to her head.

On Tuesday morning we woke up to a decent amount of cool, drizzly rain. We were both excited for the cooler weather (hallelujah!) and all the errands we had to run in it that day, until it came time to get clothes on the small one, at which point things got sort of messy. This was the final ensemble:

The whole "expressing preferences" thing crosses over into picture-taking too. I was only able to take a picture after "we" decided that she would stand still and show me the Tinkerbell sticker on her shirt.

1. Long-sleeved shirt: This was the product of my excellent sales techniques and reverse psychology. "Well, alright, go ahead and wear the sleeveless velvet church dress, but I guess that means you won't be able to wear this nice shirt with the sparkly [pause for emphasis], rainbow, [pause] flower today..."

2. Skirt: This was a given. At some point every morning I suggest clothes to Rayna, and every morning she tells me, with an equal mix of delight and authority, "Dress!" And since I had already nixed the velvet gown idea, I knew a skirt would be pretty much non-negotiable. I was hoping for some tights to go along with it, considering the cool weather and all, but it turns out not a single pair of her many tights was deemed acceptable. Alas.

3. At this point I decided maybe we could take a break from the clothes. She doesn't like her hair in her eyes, and on this subject we are agreed! We tried a variety of bows, clips, and flowers, until I finally turned on PBS Kids which provided the necessary distraction time for me to get a ponytail in there that went blessedly unnoticed the rest of the day.

4. I saved the shoes for the final moments before we had to leave for the doctor's office, because as Bowman says, if you leave it to the last minute, it only takes a minute... I was hoping. This was our aftermath:

Five pairs of socks and four pairs of shoes later, we settled on the flip-flops, mostly because we were going  to be late if she tried on another pair of closed-toed shoes. Deciding on shoes was like a complicated game, except it was the sick kind of game that you have to keep playing even though you don't like it. Like the last few rounds of Phase 10, or maybe Jumanji. Someone roll a 5 or an 8, please!!! At last it ended when Rayna made her decision and came running from her closet with the final choice: "Sip-ops!"

An hour after I first took off her pajamas, I had a happy girl who was decently clothed and ready to leave.

Her legs were probably a little chilly, and her feet got wet in the puddles in the parking lot, but all in all, I'm glad she's learning to make decisions and that we are both figuring out how to be a little more flexible. :)