This Kid Has Gone Fem-Loco

Truth be told, I’ve been getting a little smug about having all boys. Not because it hasn’t been challenging; I’ve had way more than my fair share of dirty looks when I take my boy-circus out in public. But this year when I got my last little monkey potty trained, I started seeing flickers of light at the end of the tunnel. Then I easily slid into thoughts of how fantastic it was going to be to skip all of that girly teen drama I hear about. Sure, boys are typically harder when they are younger, but that rowdiness and bad language pales in comparison to the hazards surrounding a rebellious teenage girl, right? (I should know. I shudder to think of the torture if I had to raise my teenage self.) Some day down the road, I’m thinking I’ll finally get my fair reward for surviving this life of boy-monkey-madness. Someday.


And then - Collin turned 3. Yes, Collin is my 4^th boy, and he was obviously supposed to be a girl. He was supposed to be Colleen. (No, I wouldn’t really have named my daughter Colleen, not that there’s anything wrong with it.) Anyhow, I still call him Colleen at times, especially lately, because he's started up with some unusual girlish behavior. I don’t know how else to describe it – it’s a combination of OCD and a costume fetish. He’s crazy obsessed with his clothes, costumes, uniforms, and all the matching accessories. I mean every last sock, hat, glove and shoelace has to be correct. It's nuts. And it’s exactly what I imagined it would be like to have a high-strung little girl. And this is one of those parenting headaches I thought I would never ever have to deal with, because I don't have girls!

It started with baseball season, when my oldest two boys got their baseball uniforms. Collin saw them in uniform and his little mind went haywire. He had to wear those uniforms. Even though the uniforms are 5 sizes too big for him, so it looks as if he’s wearing a baseball dress with clown pants and clown shoes. Not only did he try the uniforms on, he wanted to live in them. You name it, he’s doing it in the clown-size baseball cleats, a baseball jersey dress, hat, and giant batting gloves. I admit it’s so adorable it makes everyone who sees him smile. But stay out of his way, because he doesn’t quite have control over those clown cleats, and they hurt like the dickens when your toes get under them. And the batting gloves, he screams about them because he needs help putting them on, plus they are so big that he can’t use his hands effectively. Just locating the correct matching accessories for each outfit could drive me to drink more wine than I should. But he doesn't give in, he still wants to wear it all, everywhere, and all the time.

It’s cute, right? So let it go, right? That’s exactly what I thought. Until he started changing uniforms every few minutes, and he added a couple Halloween costumes to the mix. Now, changing clothes 87 times throughout the day would be bearable if he wasn’t whining at me constantly because they don’t fit properly, are impossible for him to take off and put on, and he can't find a missing sock or something. Not to mention that these uniforms are hot, so he's getting sweaty and stomping those clown cleats on my bare toes with abandon. And then there's the exhausting fact that Collin’s clothes fetish is relentless from sunup to sundown. Bedtime is no cakewalk, because he's got rules about his pajamas. In the morning, he stands at my side of the bed mere moments after he awakes, demanding that I help him out of his pajamas and into a baseball uniform. Have you ever awoken at dawn to a 3 year old standing next to your head with giant baseball cleats in his hands, demanding that you put them on him? And then screaming at you because his belt is the wrong color? Something had to be done.

So what does a mom of four do to destroy her child’s crazy fetish? If she has a Target nearby – she heads right over there and buys her 3 year old a pair of his very own baseball cleats and socks. Yep, that’s what I did, believe it. I really just wanted to make our lives a little more pleasant; I thought at least if his shoes fit we could move about more easily and have less whining. So much for that plan. Of course he's still changing and complaining and whining and it’s still driving me nuts. Even the babysitter was at her wits’ end after spending an hour with this little clothes-changing devil. I do take credits for saddling the sitter with this kid for a while – that’s what every seasoned mom does, right?

I know I’m not the only mom who has seen this type of behavior, and I’m in desperate need of consolation. Please tell me this is just a phase, because I'm beyond ready to go back to being smug about not having any girls. And not having any boys that act like girls. Not that there’s anything wrong with it.