Dressed to please

Press, 24 August 1988, Page 16

Dressed to please

It had to come, but I was hoping it would be later rather than sooner. It was not even as if I had not been warned. Friends with older children had been telling me for some time that it was an inevitable part of my children getting older. So when I faced my son, just a few short months from his third birthday, and tried to get him dressed for the day ahead I should have been prepared. He wanted to choose his own clothes. Up until now dressing the children was a relatively simple affair. Poke the appropriate appendages through the matching arm, leg, and neck holes and voila! A dressed child. “Red trousies, not these, red ones!" he shouted at me when I went to put his blue tracksuit pants on. On went the red trousers. I then offered up a shirt and jersey for inspection. Treating them with ignore, he proceeded to upend himself into the

bottom drawer surfacing some minutes later with a garish green jersey which was strictly reserved for light gardening and grading duties in his sandpit. Temporarily amused at this small show of independence, I dressed him to his instructions. This too, I thought, will pass. It has not, and I am no longer amused. His present, all-time favourite item of clothing is a summer-weight T shirt with red armbands and “Ernie” from Sesame Street printed on the front. The T-shirt and the boy have been inseparable since it was given to him

by a friend two weeks ago. “Ernie” may only be washed in the sleeping hours, and must be dry and ready to wear the moment his feet hit the floor the next morning. Not trusting his mother with this simple chore he has taken to supervising “Ernie’s” progress into the washing machine, climbing on to a stool, hooking it out and depositing it in the drier. Last week my husband found him, at 8 a.m., giving a damp and crumpled “Ernie” a spell in front of the heater. His look said it all. His idiot of a mother had forgotten, actually forgotten, to ensure that "Ernie” was ready for another day. Realising that a lightweight “Ernie” was simply not going to stand up to a daily romp in. the washing machine, and live much beyond two months, I have started looking for a duplicate to produce when “Ernie” Mark 1 finally meets his

maker ... somewhere in Taiwan. It reminds me of the time I walked the streets looking for a teddy which had to be exactly the same as the one a friend had brought him back from Australia. I finally located the teddy, paid big money for it, and then had to steel myself to roll its pristine body in the garden, rip one eye off, and sew on a black button in its place. Suitably aged, and indistinguishable from

“Teddy No Name” number one, I offered it to my son so I could unwind his sticky little fingers from the original to wash it. His vice-like grip on “Teddy No Name” told me it was no-go. Undefeated, I shall try again with “Ernie.” So, if anyone knows where I can find a T shirt with red armbands and “Ernie” on the front juggling what look to be three soccer balls, I would, be most grateful.