We made a choice when we had our son. We agreed to raise him differently.
He eats pizza. He’s even had French fries. If I’m being entirely honest, he’s also eaten crayons, sock fuzz, and whatever he found in the dust pan at the play place that accidentally got left in the middle of the room.
So we’re not raising him differently in the culinary sense. (Or are we?) What we are more certainly doing differently has to do with consumerism.
We made the choice before he was born to prioritize savings, college education, and experiences (including local ones!) over things.
And whoa, baby toddler, has that been a tough pill for some of the people in our lives to swallow.
And now that our baby toddler is perched right on the size chart between baby and boy, it’s made for some frugally awkward conversations.
“They fit just a bit better.”
My sweet mother-in-law dropped HP off one afternoon, and I noticed he was in a different outfit. Uh oh, I thought. My mind immediately scanned through the handful of photos I’d received throughout the day via text. I was trying to figure out when the spill happened. Or when he decided to smear his lunch all over his shirt. Or went, dear laundry gods no, his diaper just gave up the ghost.
But I actually vividly recalled him wearing the same outfit in every photo. Weird. What was even weirder was that I actually didn’t recognize the outfit he was wearing. It wasn’t the clothes we dressed him in, and it wasn’t any of his back-up outfits that we have tucked away in diaper bags and grandparents’ houses.
I looked at HP and deadpanned, “Someone made a mess!”
My mother-in-law returned, “I bought him some clothes. They fit just a bit better.”
I quickly sensed that there wasn’t a single thing I could do or say to convince her that it was unnecessary. She already washed the outfit, and it did look adorable.
Except for the fact that he kind of looked like an extra from Clueless, rocking the 90s saggy pants with his boxers diaper peeking out. Because while she may have been right that he wasn’t a size 18M anymore, I can also assure you that he was not a 24M yet either.
RELATED POST: Should I Feel Guilty for Accepting Hand-Me-Downs?
“I think he was actually the worst-dressed baby in the whole place.”
Let me tell you a true story. Imagine a morning when you glance at the clock and realize that you can, in fact, actually leave your house a whole five minutes early. The heavens shine down. The choir of angels sings.
Then, your baby looks you dead in the eyes, turns on his heel, and makes a beeline for your closet. Which he just so happens to treat as his own personal bathroom.
And you are now five minutes late instead of early because you have a diaper to change.
That, friends, isn’t just a one-off. That is virtually every morning.
So imagine my distress post diaper change when I noticed that the camo sleeves on his baby bodysuit clashed with his striped leggings (think Beetlejuice but horizontal).
Just kidding.
I didn’t have time to feel distress because I was already late. So I grabbed a plain pair of pants and ran out the door, baby in tow.
When I got to my parents’ house, I suggested that maybe they change his pants the next time they changed his diaper.
Instead, my mom lovingly took her grandson to the children’s play place where she proceeded to un-lovingly rib her daughter via text for the entire duration of their stay.
Mom: I think he was actually the worst-dressed baby in the whole place.
Me: MOM!
Mom: Don’t worry. He’s also the cutest.
“Your baby plays with garbage?”
We were so fortunate to receive a hand-me-down play kitchen. Since the behemoth’s arrival last summer, this kitchen has captured HP’s heart.
And my little Chef Boyardee in training loves nothing more than to emulate what he actually sees happen in the kitchen. Which is to say, he is really good at smacking the bottom of the pretend jars as he shakes out imaginary food. He also grunts in a faux struggle to open the tops of things. And he makes a mean brownie recipe–from the blue box!–using his pretend mixer.
We actually inherited an entire Melissa & Doug collection of play canned food, and before he turned into a part-time piranha, he played with them nonstop. But when I saw him start to gnaw through the cardboard-coated can and actually snack on whatever he managed to bite off, we switched to plastic. Specifically, old spice containers, an empty Parmesan cheese shaker, and a few other things straight from our pantry.
Which led someone to joke, “Oh, your baby plays with garbage?”
Actually, it’s called recycling, Patricia.
That mixing spoon was a shower favor, too! Don’t tell my friend! 😉
Final Thoughts on Frugally Awesome or Awkward Toddler Moments
I know we are headed for a lifetime of awesome and awkward frugality. Anytime you dare to stand apart, people comment. Lucky for us, most everyone comments out of kindness. Even if what they do say makes me a little squirmy, we are so fortunate to have so many people in our lives who care about our son.
And his mismatched clothes.
Honestly. It was one time, Mom.
Final Thoughts…Tell me all of your awkward parenting/babysitting moments!
Want to squirm more? Here’s the whole awkward series.
HP is surrounded by love, and that’s all that matters!
When my boys were small, we lived in NH, where nobody cares what your kids are wearing because clothing is not important (mom jeans from the 80s and 90s are de rigor for women of all ages in NH!!). But we did get ribbed a lot from my family because of all the “trash” the kids played with. So we picked up a kitchen set from the side of the road! So we found lots of tricycles and outside play toys at the dump (where there was a great “free! take this!” section)! The boys were happy and learned the power of reusing. My mom still buys the boys clothes and now I love it. One more thing I don’t have to buy!! But I still spend a lot on their shoes. Because I want them to have stylish shoes!! ??♀️
“Patricia” seems kind of rude.
My kids have dressed themselves for so long that if I cared about clashing I’d probably have died of an aneurysm years ago.
Since I was the first child and was given almost exclusively pink and purple clothes my friends and family, my brother often wore pink and purple pajamas or whatever. Which, in the 90s wasn’t a huge deal, but still brought up comments from others. Which is hilarious because, they’re literally just for him to sleep in.
BwC received a toy garbage truck and a mini garbage can as a Xmas gift. He wanted to imitate garbage workers by putting actual garbage in the mini can then dumping it into the garbage truck. So what we did was tear up some paper and crumble them to make them into garbage. We also gave him toilet paper rolls as garbage as well.
He brought the garbage truck along with the actual garbage to a family party and that led to some family members asking if that was real garbage he was using. We said yes because he wants to copy what the garbage workers do. They took it lightly and laughed every time he would dump the can into the truck.
Thank you for the awesome combination of humility and confidence you portray in this post (and every post). When we had our little one, we knew we would be different than most of the people in our immediate social network concerning spending. I come to posts like yours to remind myself I’m not crazy! We want to “give him the best,” but truly analyze what such a statement means. He is currently very satified with his “toys” and hand-me-downs. If you’ve never seen this video, I highly recommend it: https://youtu.be/9FizCJdJDec
It’s so true! Everything is a toy when it shouldn’t be!
JB TOTALLY played with the trash, it was the best. The contents of the recycling bag changed every week, it was endless fun. Except that one time ze licked the coffee grounds out of the bag … but that was less fun for me than zir. 😀
JB dresses zirself now and the results are INTERESTING.
I love this post! The kids certainly don’t mind if a toy is used or not, so why should we? Who are the toys for? The enjoyment of our kids or so parents can keep up with the Joneses? Thanks for always writing in such a personal and humorous way.
With our oldest I was often asked, “Where are his shoes?” I would say, “He can’t walk yet.” (shoulder shrug). With the baby I was given hand-me-down shoes, which I love. However, he can’t walk yet and I find myself not using the shoes very often. Lol.
Okay, old spice containers?? Now that is just freaking GENIUS.
We we’re fortunate that Mrs. SSC’s best friend had a kid same gender 6 months ahead of ours. Both times! They also had a big Greek family with a box of clothes that got shipped around and we used them and sent them back when we were done, along with some new additions.
While our kids were clothed, there were times, many tbh, that they definitely were NOT the best dressed kids around. And yes they also liked playing with “garbage” and “non-toys” but more power to them and their creativity. ??
Hi Penny,
I laugh at this because as boys grow older (at least mine!) they are happy to pick the clothes they wore yesterday out of the laundry basket and wear them again. My daughter was another story though. I wish I had a picture of the time she decided to wear a green one piece bathing suit and green frog welly boots. (she was 3). She looked so cute and was so happy with her choice! We ran our errands that day to a lot of strange looks from the other shoppers. (Now at 21 she is hoping for a career in fashion – ha!)
I try to be frugal about what we can be with the kids. I don’t buy too much clothing, but only because the kids have two very generous grandmas. Plus they have a cousin providing plenty of hand me down clothes!
We have lots of toys for the kids for the same reason: my family loves giving them stuff. It’s hard to tell them to stop, since the kids like the toys and my family likes giving them!