A Strong Sense of Style

Ben has warned me that there will come a time when all that my boys will want to wear is sweatpants.  Somewhere around late elementary/early middle school, he tells me, I should be prepared for this apparently unavoidable phase, where boys abhor the shower, don't want their hair cut, and refuse to wear anything without an elastic waist.  Of course, some of my boys are already there - Adam chooses pants without zippers and buttons whenever possible, and let's not even mention my husband's daily "uniform".  But Ethan, he has (almost) always been my snappy little dresser.  Sure, there is the occasional misstep, but for the most part, this kid knows how to look good.  And even better, he really truly cares about looking good.  A lot.  He enjoys shopping for clothes, gets as excited about a new sweater as he does about a new truck, and is always asking me, "Do I look cute?".  I love this about him - he channels a little bit of what I miss about not having a daughter.  I mean, look at this kid:

(Okay, I did help with this one a bit, but now I guarantee he will dress himself in this outfit again soon, probably on a day when our plans include the grocery store and puddle stomping.  He doesn't quite get the concept of casual vs. dressy clothes, but I suppose it's better to overdress for the occasion, right?)

I guess the adorable outfit we chose for The Nutcracker on Saturday spurred a love of sweater vests for our fashionista.  Yesterday morning, he came down (for yoga class, mind you) with another sweater vest, this time with absolutely nothing underneath it.  And on the bottom?  Sweatpants.  As all parents know, you must pick and choose your battles, but I could not let my child go out in December with essentially an argyle muscle shirt on.  So we compromised:

Yes, it is an awful outfit.  But the more I pushed to remove the sweater vest, the more Ethan wanted to wear it.  I decided I really didn't care what our fellow yogis thought of his creation, and off we went.  He wore his sweater vest with pride, through some chuckles from Daddy on our way out, some smiles from other moms at yoga, and some interesting looks at the pizza place afterwards.  But when he got up from his nap, I noticed Ethan had taken his vest off.  I peeked in his room, and found it here:

Ready and waiting for its next adventure.