if you look back in the archives to a year or more ago you’ll find darla’s style has evolved a bit. i have lots of pics of her in perfectly styled outfits through her 2s and most of her 3s. lately, things have been more of a random mess. this is due to the simple fact that i am no longer the person that chooses what darla wears. it’s a bittersweet pill to swallow. every once in a while she’ll let me put something together for her but most days it’s all her. actually, i think getting to pick her own clothes for the day is her main motivation for no longer screaming for me as soon as she awakens. most mornings she has herself already ensembled before we see each other. one time she dressed herself, toasted her own toast and was spreading the butter on for herself before i was done brushing my teeth and washing my face.

anyway, most of the time i feel that she goes in there and picks out the two ugliest things she owns and puts them on together. it never fails that the clothing i like the least are the ones that are her favorite. so no more mommy playing dress-up with her baby. that little girl gets to wear what she picks. sometimes this means pajamas to school or shoes on the wrong feet or socks with sandals on the first 90 degree day of the year when she refused to wear them all winter. whatever. go on witcha bad self.

believe me, i’ve tried to persuade her to let me put together some really cute pairings over the past few months. i’ve wasted time and energy trying to coerce her into wearing something that i think will look sweet but i finally gave up and realized it wasn’t important. everytime i look at a stylish blog with preschoolers dressed like olsen twins i remind myself that someone probably had to put a lot of time and effort into getting their children to look like that. be it either spending the time to acquire the clothing in the first place or by instituting a parental apparel command chain.* it’s just not important to me that darla look like the most stylish 4-year-old this side of a gapkids catalog. it matters that she gets wear what she likes. and who am i kidding? most of the time i look back at pictures of myself and have the same thought every damn time: why did i think i could wear that? who let me go out looking like that? i am not really the most qualified person to be putting outfits together. { i think we already covered the whole army boots with knee-length skirt phase }

but every now and again she’ll put something together that makes me think hey, she’s on to something there. she’s developing her own style. at the tender little age of 4 she’s got her OWN style. and it’s pretty rad. it needs a little more fringe and shiny, in my opinion, but seeing as how she pulled out a pair of thrifted 80s heels from my closet, set them on my pillow right next to my head and said “mom, if you wear these heels everyone will like you” i’m confident that we’ll get there eventually.

*full disclothesure {pun! clothing pun!} – i do enjoy the aesthetic pleasure of visiting stylish blogs and seeing stylish kids. it’s great. it’s just not for me. i’m too unorganized to pull it off. and i could be wrong. all these families could be operating in a blissful little well dressed cloud world that i know nothing about as evidenced by my own wardrobe which incites people to place bets on what i will show up wearing and has been described as being composed of “wallpaper prints.” a complete stranger told me at the airport that i don’t spend a lot of time living in reality based solely on my outfit that day. maybe this needs a separate post…