Dapper Dan

Last night I had the kids pick out their clothes for church. Enzo got way into the exercise. He's had a lot of opinions about his dress clothes of late. He seems to think he's grown too big for dress shorts.  I would think he'd cling to the dress short for as many ridiculously hot summers as possible but apparently he values appearance over comfort.  He chose long pants, a yellow dress shirt, blue and yellow striped tie and a navy cardigan.

This morning after breakfast he headed up the stairs and dressed himself all on his own initiative. As I was applying my eye liner I heard him call "Mom, will you iron my shirt?" and thought "whoa, he's really taking this seriously."

Turns out, he wanted the shirt ironed, not because it was wrinkled but because he thought that would cure his shirttails of hanging down below his sweater.  I explained that I could iron the shirt but the shirttails would still show, they'd just be showing a bit crisper, and than the cure for his problem wasn't ironing but tucking.  "ugh," he moaned "I hate when you tuck in my shirt.  You always get it in my underwear." Sorry about that, son.  I'll try and be more careful.

A little later on, after I'd seen that all 3 older children were properly dressed, offending shirt tucked into the pants but not the underpants and hair combed, I went to dress Duke.  All that was left after that was to put on my own shoes and head out the door.  Then I heard the last words a mother in such a position wants to hear.  "Mom, I accidentally peed my pants."

Apparently Enz was too wrapped up in the process of getting dressed to attend to other matters.  I was not very sympathetic.

With his long church pants peed, Enzo was forced to wear the dress shorts he'd earlier shunned and since his shirt was neatly tucked in peeing his pants also meant peeing his shirt.  The whole ensemble he'd worked so hard on was ruined.  His tie didn't match the alternate shirt in his closet and without the tie the cardigan lost it's allure.

 If you ask me this was all for the best when you consider that my car's thermometer (which reads consistently low) reported it 106 as we were leaving church.  Enz, however was not thinking of comfort (as you'll recall) also, this was happening before church so the day had not yet attained that level of heat.  He was beside himself "I don't even look handsome without a tie!" he bellowed as he descended the stairs so we could (finally) leave.

If he wasn't so adorably tragic I would have had absolutely no patience with his ongoing hysterics.  As it was I fetched a tie for him from his father's closet.  He resigned wearing it however as he was sure it would be much to long for him.  I guess this means it's time I start consulting him before I buy his clothes. Darn it.