(When you live with a fashionista, no one is safe)
We’ve had a rash of fashion melt downs lately. It always happens like this:
We should have left five minutes ago for the store/doctor/movie. Everyone is ready, and was ready 10 minutes ago. Then Mireya says she’ll be right back.
Never, never let her go back in the house. I know this. But somehow she’s like an eel and before I click the seatbelt around her she’s running in for one last thing. Which always involves a wardrobe change.
She’s five and already she’s staring in her drawer in horror and saying “I don’t have anything to wear!”
I used to get involved in the selection process only to be firmly rebuked. And, to be fair, for good reason. My fashion sense is restricted to jeans and travel related t-shirts. Still, I’M dressed when it’s time to go.
Besides, there’s plenty to wear. I can’t even close Mireya’s drawers half the time. Fifty percent of our laundry items are hers due to the three outfit a day rule. I end up standing in the doorway to her room about to pull my hair out, thinking “who are you?” and “are we related?”
The last time this happened I had to physically carry her out of her room while she screamed her head off and I grabbed what I thought was a perfectly rational fashion choice for her to get dressed in once we arrived the gift store.
She stomped into Miss Mellie’s store, took one look at Miss Mellie and said “I did not want to wear this. I hate these pants.”
Miss Mellie gave me an arched eyebrow and I shrugged in my Grand Tetons t-shirt.
So it was a bit of an eye opener when we were at the family reunion and I was telling this story to the gathered moms. Everyone laughed and was sympathetic with my side. Except for my aunt and my own mother.
“I know just how she feels,” my aunt said, adjusting a beautiful earring. “The same thing happens to me all the time.”
There it was. The gene. This intense fashion gene was passed through undiluted from my aunt, whom I’ve called the Mexican Martha Stewart, and my mother, who wears heels to the hardware store.
Fine. Next time we’re in front of the overflowing drawer of “no clothes to wear,” I’m calling them on the cell phone. Maybe they’ll be able to talk her into wearing something. Anything.
After all, I can’t have her wearing the wrong pants again. She may disown me.
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