Maybe I should back up a little bit.
Over six years ago, G was born. He was a surprise to my wife and I. She already had a 12 year old son, and he wasn't too impressed at first of the idea. Though shocking, we both embraced the change and welcomed him into the world in July of 2008. Such a perfect looking boy - handsome!
G developed well and learned to walk and talk before many of his peers. All babies develop differently, so while we were proud, we knew that a few months could put another child ahead of ours in some metric. We were just happy to have a healthy, happy, baby.
G's issues didn't really start until about 3. We were in California working, and he decided he liked a particular shirt and wasn't too receptive to changing it. This was the beginning of the era I dis-affectionately refer to as "The Pizza Shirt" era. We were working out in the desert, with a Carters, Baby Gap, or similar hard to find. It was probably our fault for not being more assertive about it, but we figured "Hey, what's the big deal, it could be worse." Besides, I had a favorite shirt as a kid - a white shirt with black 3/4-sleeves and a print of the Star Wars cast on it. I still remember when my mom chucked that thing.
His attachment to the pizza shirt lasted for months. As my wife would bath him upstairs, she would quickly hand wash the pizza shirt, throw it down the stairs to me. I would run it down to the basement, and into the drier so that I could have it ready for when he got out of the tub to prevent a freak out.
The end of the pizza shirt occurred one day when my wife was at work. Sitting on the couch, I developed a spine and said "Not one more day". After trying to talk to him about it, it came down to me ripping the shirt off him. A freak out occurred and lasted about a half an hour.
After the pizza shirt came the red shirt with the train on it, and we are now on a red shirt (with a pocket, from Old Navy) and brown shorts and purple Crocs. We have been on this outfit for a while, made oh so much more challenging in the winter months when we lived in the snowy NorthEast. I can't even tell you the looks we would get when my wife would take him out in those cold months wrapped in her shawl to keep his legs warm. We must be bad parents. Certainly we didn't dress our child properly.
I completely get this. And I want to be completely
