My Husband Can't Dress the Kids Right

By Aaron Traister, REDBOOK

DEAR WHYS GUY:

"Why can't my husband dress my kids in cute outfits? When he's in charge in the morning, our little girls always end up looking like they dressed themselves-in the dark, in a wind storm."

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DEAR REDBOOK READER:

Karel gives me static about this as well. She gets especially irritated when I dress Josie in her brother's hand-me-downs. I'll tell you why we can't dress kids in cute outfits. There are two major reasons:

It's totally impractical. I'm not taking Josie for a date at the Russian Tea Room or an audience with the Queen, we're going to look at toads. There is a good chance she is going to fall into the pond, end even if she manages to avoid getting soaked from head to toe, she will be covered in mud, and if the mud dries by the time we leave the pond then she'll be covered in a fresh layer of dirt after she plays trucks with her friends at the park. Josie is adorable, and when it's appropriate, she can wear cute clothing. But her life right now is exploratory and pretty messy. Why wreck her special occasion clothes during an average day? She can look cute on Easter and Thanksgiving.

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I just don't care. Combine the knowledge from part one of my answer with the fact that I have to wrestle a wriggling, squirming three-year-old into clothes while she desperately tries to chase after her older brother to beat him with a foam sword equals not a lot of time energy or thought to put into finding a "cute outfit." I shoot for whatever is closest and easiest to throw on her before she goes tearing off, and that usually means elastic and utilitarian.

My kids will have a life time to worry about how they look, for now let's just let them worry about how to have fun.

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