If the fashion police arrest my husband, what should I post for bail?

Ok, I admit it, I’m a sucker for baby clothes. Show me any Gymboree outfit from the last five years, and I can tell you what collection it came from and what year it was out. I know, it’s not really something to be proud of, but there it is.

I hang my kids’ clothes in the closet in complete outfits. Now you might be thinking that this is my Type A personality shining through, but it is, in fact, a simple sanity-saving device for when you are trying to get two wiggly toddlers and one mutinous kindergartener dressed and out the door in the morning. Grab one hanger and voila! Instant outfit! And yet, for some reason I still cannot fathom, on the rare morning that Husband gets them dressed, he manages to find a) the one article of clothing in the closet 2 sizes too small, and b) a random shirt and pair of pants that not only don’t match, but which clash hideously. When he’s done, my normally well-groomed, Gymboree-poster-children look like Salvation Army rejects. Does he do this to push me directly over the edge into insanity? Possibly, but he tends to be more forward-thinking than that. After all, you don’t bite the hand that feeds your children. No, I think I must conclude that the man has no *gasp* fashion sense. How this is possible after having spent almost 11 years in my sparkling, elegant, and oh-so-stylish [ok, fine, at least I aim for non-frumpy] company is still a mystery. Even when I pull out the girls’ clothes for him, he doesn’t seem to know what to do with them. He tucks swing shirts into leggings. He buttons just the middle button on their cardigans. He puts the tights on over the onesie. He pulls their winter hats down all the way, and then pushes them back up again so that when you finally remove them, an indeterminate amount of time later, their little bangs are sticking straight up at weird angles. It’s not that he doesn’t care what his children look like, it’s just that he doesn’t realize they look bad.

Big Sis, at 5-1/2, is now reaching that stage where she wants autonomy over her wardrobe. It is a sad, sad day in this mommy’s life as I have not yet been successful in convincing her that just because the top and the bottom are both purple, it doesn’t mean they match.

And so, between Husband and Big Sis, I find myself finally uttering those dreaded words of my mother’s that I swore I would never say: “You can’t leave the house looking like THAT! What will people think of me??”