SPITBULL

IN THE SPRING A YOUNG CHILD'S FANCY LIGHTLY TURNS TO THOUGHTS OF BATHING SUITS

Minnesota is blessed with many clothes-showdown days: cold, snowy or rainy bleak weather days that make the youngun's spontaneously crave the bare-skin feeling of hot weather clothing while their parents are still reaching for the mittens. Yesterday was one (today is too), but M.A.W.B.er St. Kate wisely backed down and let her son wear shorts.

In the sleep-deprived days after my youngest was born, I was not so wise. One morning I had a knock-down drag-out screaming and crying fight with the seven year old who insisted on wearing a dress to day care despite the sub-zero temperatures of January in Minnesota. A Minnesota day care which, in the interests of raising hardy children (and keeping its staff sane), sends the children outside to play twice a day no matter what the weather (I think they might make an exception for lightning storms). I demanded she wear the pants/turtleneck and sweater combo I had picked out. Not only appropriate to the weather, but tasteful to boot. As the volume increased, she grudgingly consented to wear pants underneath her dress, but that was her final offer.

My only excuse is that I only had two or maybe three awake and functioning synapses that morning. I kept clinging dully to some stupid child care principal I had read in some inane magazine about how to raise kids. Must. Be. Consistent. It took at least twenty minutes for the thought that this was a dumb fight to penetrate my fog and another ten to figure out a face-saving way to back down.

I promised myself that day never to fight about clothing again. (Ed. Hah! Just wait until she's a teenager ...) And I've kept my promise. My favorite outfit so far is the one she donned for a family expedition to shop for a couch: Raggedy pink tutu worn over a jumper (sewn by my grandmother who couldn't see very well so the seams were all akilter), rubber duck boots and an Easter rabbit ears headband.

Now that's fashionable.