Nakey baby

Cavan is going through a nakey baby stage—her uncontrollable desire to shed all of her clothes. Lately this impulsion is prompted by a number of frequent occurrences. Spilling a drop of milk, water, juice on her clothing—the shirt, pants, panties, socks, all must come off. Doesn’t matter that the dime-sized drop only assaulted her sleeve. Next, a routine trip to the potty. Well, that is quite obviously call to remove all clothes on her lower half. I generally don’t care if the kid runs around our house like it’s a nudist colony, but sometimes garments are necessary. Perhaps it’s cold and my little girl is shivering to spite herself. I’m gonna put her clothes back on. Or we’re going to play outside. Cavan is happy putting her shoes on, with or without socks, but she prefers to avoid the pants and the panties. Even if it was warm enough (which it’s not) to prance about our yard in only skin, the spring mosquitoes would make a banquet of baby flesh, so no sweetie, we have to wear our pants, and while we’re at it, let’s put on a jacket too.

I guess this assertive opinionating is all a natural part of being two and a half, but any reasonable attempt on my part to dress Cavan after she has purposefully removed her clothing to various degrees, is like me volunteering to jab chopsticks in my eyeballs. The same screaming and writhing on the floor ensues, though I am technically avoiding the physical pain and deformity of mutilating torture. As if I sewed sandpaper on the inside of all her clothing.  

Remarkably enough, dressing my baby in the morning is no problem. She is usually very decisive about her choice of clothing—lately she loves wearing her “pretty dresses” with tights. And I have heard no news from her teachers that she’s stripping for her peers. I guess I have just entered the world of mother-daughter power struggles.