Purely Unnecessary

In which I convince my toddler to wear real clothes.

My son is wearing real clothes and I am very excited.

He is sprawled out on the living room floor, stacking blocks over his toy cars and saying, "Ga-rah," over and over again, which means, "garage." The toy cars go into the garage and out again, and I can't tell if anything more than that is happening, but it seems to be enough to bring a big silly grin to his face. This makes me grin too, and also take lots of pictures, in part because the light blue of his polo shirt printed with little sailboats perfectly complements the warm wooden blocks and morning sunshine streaming in through the shutters.

I have, so far, been a very pragmatic mother. I used an old desk as a changing table because the season of changing diapers on an elevated surface is a relatively short one. I held off on any nursery decorations since no one's really noticing them yet, and this avoids having to redecorate once kiddo is old enough to have opinions. Since birth he's been clothed in plain organic white cotton onesies that can be bleached back to sparkling white and will serve a future child as well, if the Lord is so kind to us. Very simple, very pragmatic. Also, it makes for very boring photos.

Getting our toddler to wear actual clothes didn't happen overnight. The first week we tried, he was adamant that he did not want to wear a shirt, no ma'am, and certainly not pants. "Naaaoooooooo!" he said in his drawn-out fashion, savoring each phoneme as can only be done by someone learning to speak. After a week we gave up. He's not ready, I'd said. Let's not be late. Yes, he can go out in his onesie, again.

White onesie at the playground, running in the grass. White onesie crossing the cobblestone street, holding Dad's hand. White onesie building mountains out of play dough, driving construction vehicles around them. White. Onesie. All the time.

All this practicality was beginning to get to me. Something had to change. In a flash of brilliance I found some cotton shirts (not organic, but we must make sacrifices) embroidered with race cars, fire trucks, and construction vehicles—surely irresistible clothing for a toddler boy.

When the clothes arrived I presented them happily. "Do you want to wear a shirt with construction vehicles?" I asked, expectantly.

"Naoooo." Answered my construction-vehicle-obsessed boy. I'm not sure if my mouth hung open but I think it must have. "What? Are you sure? There's a digger!" I pointed. He started to wander off in the direction of his toys. I was losing him! "Wait! Wait, what about..." I paused for dramatic effect before producing another shirt with a flourish, "A fire truck?!"

This seemed to mildly pique his interest and he ambled back to take a closer look. Thinking I'd better sweeten the deal, I laid out the rest of the shirts on his bed. "Race cars! And look! Trucks! Do you want to wear one of these?"

"Nao." He said, but continued to peruse the offerings. He touched the embroidered race cars and traced a finger along the outline of the fire truck, acclimating. If it takes all morning to get him into a shirt and pants, I thought, I am going to make this happen.

It took what felt like hours, but was probably about twenty minutes. He chose the race cars. There was some mild protesting when the collar of the shirt popped over his head. As soon as it was on I whisked him over to the mirror.

"Look! Your shirt has race cars on it! What color is this one?"

"Boo." He said, grinning as I point at the blue car. Then he pushes my hand away. "Yaw. Rah." He says, pointing at the yellow and red cars.

"That's right!" I say, genuinely enthused. "Good job wearing a shirt!"

Toddlers love routine, so I knew that once I got him started on this whole wearing-daytime-clothes thing, I couldn't just let it slide again. Each morning I let him pick his outfit—and we did eventually run out of vehicles. Fire truck or construction vehicles? Construction vehicles or trucks? Trucks or sailboats? Sailboats or plain blue? When all the vehicle-adorned outfits were in the hamper and we got a shirt on anyway, without a fuss, I knew we'd turned a corner.

All this took, of course, a lot more time than leaving him in his white cotton onesie all day. It requires more loads of different-colored laundry. There are days he insists on wearing the same pants for the third day in a row. Not very practical.

The early babyhood days felt like an era of pragmatism. Simplify what I could, get through the day, sleep as much as I could (not much), and do it all again tomorrow. Baby snuggles and little smiles are wonderful, but I wouldn't have called it fun.

Now, in early toddlerhood, it's starting to get fun. He's more expressive, communicative, imaginative—but also, I'm allowing myself to give up some convenience for the small, seemingly impractical pleasures of parenthood.

I let him linger at the window, taking out my camera to catch the morning sunlight playing in the top of that tuft of hair that always stands up at the front of his head. I listen as he tries to tell me a story, with his limited vocabulary and missing syllables, about the fire truck he saw, while a phone call vibrates away in my pocket. I hold him tight just a little longer than is strictly necessary when lifting him onto the couch to read a book, the cozy warm cotton fabric of his sailboat shirt in my hands.

The sleepless nights are not over, but I think they've largely passed. I've done what feels like all I can to simplify my life and maximize convenience so that I can give my full attention to my child. Now, I want more than practicality—I want memories. I want aesthetic pleasure. I want the strictly impractical, purely unnecessary, God-given joy of parenthood.