Who's The Boss Here?

It was sometime last fall that my daughter became infatuated with ballet skirts and dressing like a princess. At first it was cute and we encouraged her to dress up and have fun with it. For Halloween I purchased a few big fancy skirts for her costume and she just LOVED them. They were all she wanted to wear. For Christmas, I bought her some more frilly skirts in an attempt to get her something she would really like and use.

By January she was getting really picky about what she would wear out of the house and I was starting to get real frustrated with the whole getting her dressed process. Too often it involved her throwing a fit because she wanted to wear her favorite shirt with her favorite skirt even thought they clashed. And frequently she did not want to wear things that were suitable for how cold or wet it was outside. Even more troubling was that fact that she had a drawer full of cute pant and shirt outfits I had carefully selected last fall that she refused to wear. I hate to waste things but they were hideous abominations in her eyes!!

For the past few months I have been generally caving to her dressing desires in an attempt to be the happy agreeable mommy and to choose my battles. For the most part who cares if she wears a black and blue top with a hot pink tutu skirt and sparkly ballet flats? Or, if she says she is not cold why should I force her to put on long sleeves. In fact, just the other day I fished all the “reject” clothes out of her drawer so they weren’t wasting space there anymore.

Well, yesterday my patience finally ran out with this yellow skirt.



Yesterday morning, my daughter just had to wear this new yellow skirt I had recently bought on clearance at Wal-Mart for only $3. We dug through her drawers but none of her tops even remotely looked nice with it. I promised her we would go shopping for a top to go with it but her fits of manipulation would not be quieted. Finally, my patience gave way and I told her that from now on, I would be calling the shots and she would be wearing what I told her to. I dressed her in whatever I wanted and took the crying girl unceremoniously to the car where she sobbed most of the way to school.

During the day I formulated a plan and after school I explained it to my daughter. We went home and got all her skirts out of her drawer and then we matched all the tops with the skirts. She agreed to the outfits. I then stuffed each combination into a separate large zip lock bag. Anything I did not like or did not match was not put back in the drawer. I told her from now on she could select a bag in the morning, but she MUST wear the top and skirt that are in that bag. No more negotiating which top AND bottom she would select. She heard the plan and knows I mean business.

We even found this nice pastel blue shirt that goes with the yellow skirt which she did wear today.

I just decided that I wasn’t going to let the 3 year old boss me around anymore!!!!

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