The Art of Self Dressing

It's just not something that I think about--or didn't until recently--but putting clothes on isn't as intuitive as it first appears. For me, there is only a problem when I am either drunk or trying to dress in the dark, and even then, there's about a 50/50 chance that I'll accidentally put my clothes on rightside out and frontside forward. Well, actually, I guess that would be a 1:4 chance. No, that's not right. 1:8? Stupid maths. Except I rarely take my clothes off inside out, so that shouldn't be a factor, which takes me back to 50/50. Unless I'm drunk, then who knows how my clothes will come off, so maybe I have to factor in whether I'll even be able to find them again later. So many variables.

But USUALLY it's not something that I have to give much thought. USUALLY, it's just something that I do automatically thanks to the muscle memory of a few dozen of years of repetition. So I have a difficult time relating to the problems that Gabe is going through right now--and I am having an equally difficult time coming up with ways to help him short of doing all the work.

For Gabe is trying to master the art of self dressing--a skill that I am eager to impress upon him as it will mean far less time spent redressing him every time he goes to the bathroom. It also means fewer surprises after nap time. For the past couple of weeks, Gabe has been learning the out's of clothing (it's the in's we're still trying to master). Every day, during his nap time, he takes advantage of the privacy and strips down as best he can. Then, when he comes downstairs from his nap, I'm invariably caught off guard when my eyes are unexpectedly assaulted by little boy junk/butt. He SAYS he undresses because he's hot in his bed and he needs to cool down, but I think he just does it because he can, which is often his motivation for doing things.

We haven't, however, had much luck coaxing him into dressing himself. We've explained, time and again, the concept of "tags in the back" and how to put one foot into a panthole before the other, and time and again he's completely failed to show any interest whatsoever in cooperating.

But yesterday, after his nap, he came downstairs and my eyes were assaulted with something new--a fashion nightmare. But at least it was fashion and not nudity!


What you are seeing here takes a little bit to explain--it took me a little while to figure out what was going on and I was the one who dressed him in his Buzz Lightyear Hot Pants and Muscle Shirt combo for nap time.

The underwear is an easy one. It's on backwards. Why one side is pulled up so far that it is invading his crack and exposing his cheek, I don't know. Probably he got overzealous in pulling them up.

What's not so easy to figure out is the little green band of cloth going around his waist. Those are his Hot Pants. Instead of putting one leg in each hole, he put both legs in the same hole. Then, because the material is pretty stretchy, he was able to pull it up to his waist and twist the bulk of the cloth around to the front.

And the best part is, he was perfectly content to stay in his clothes this way. He was running around and playing like nothing happened while I found the camera to take this picture. If I hadn't stopped him and initiated a redressing, he would have spent the rest of the day looking like this. Which is awesome. No wonder I have no memories of learning to get myself dressed--it's obviously something that we want to block out and never remember.