Mini Adult Clothes

Back in February, having no idea how fast Zoe would grow, I ordered her a bunch of Size 9 month all-in-one dresses from Carter's, and supplemented with a couple selections from Penney's Okie Dokie brand.  At the time, the 9-month sized clothes were a little big on a 5-month Zoe, but she's gotten through the entire summer, wearing them, and now we're back to putting long-sleeved Onesies underneath the sleeveless all-in-ones, and pulling on BabyLegs legwarmers, and she's good to go.

The Fluffy Green Dress we loved!

The thing is, she's fourteen months old as of yesterday, and I see the Size 9-month clothes are starting to "juuuuuuuuuust fit" her, which means that between repeated washings and her tendency to shoot upwards, I'll be needing to pack away these well-worn Size 9-month clothes and start looking for some new, probably around February again.  She has enough clothes to get her through the winter, especially at her current growth rate.

Still, I like to look ahead and see what's out there.  I've learned from our experience with the Carter's lime green ruffled sunsuit that if there's an outfit that we see for Zoe, and we love it, buy one for now in the next size up from the size she's currently on, and if it's available, buy one a size or two larger than that.  We bought that sunsuit in Size 3 months, before Zoe was even born.  Thankfully, she got a good six months' wear out of it, but we loved that sunsuit.  There was a whole rack of various sizes of it the day we bought it, and then once she was here and we saw how beautiful it was on her, *poof* there wasn't one to be had.  I trolled JCPenney, both brick and dot com.  I looked in the clothing section at Diapers.com.  I stalked Carter's dot com.  I even looked at eBay, but baby clothes are often sold in lots there, and I didn't see what I was looking for after much searching.  I found all her other outfits we liked, in larger sizes, but not the Fluffy Green Dress.  Anywhere.  I even sent an email to Carter's, and they did an inventory search.  There are just no more Fluffy Green Dresses to be had.  That's how we learned our lesson about buying multiple sizes of things we Really Love for Zoe.

Like I said, even if she wakes up one of these mornings, suddenly oversized for her Nine Months clothing, we're good to go through the winter, and that's fine, because she looks particularly fetching in A-line all-in-one dresses, and there aren't any to be had this time of year.  I can hold out until Spring, and keep up with my long-sleeves under sleeveless summer clothes trick to get extra mileage out of anything I'll buy then, with Summer ahead.

Just looking around some baby-clothes websites, though, I'm surprised to see how many baby clothes look like mini adult clothes.  I guess some people think it's cute to have their little kids going around looking like mini versions of themselves.  I probably would have thought it was cute, before I had kids, if I liked kids enough to pay attention to what they were wearing.  But my kid.  I don't want my kid wearing tiny versions of the things I wear!  Soon enough, she'll be in the sixth grade, asking to borrow my jeans to wear as baggy Bermuda shorts.  She's a little kid right now!  Why can't she just wear the crazy polka-dot jumpsuits, the over-the-top ruffled playsuits, the tiered sundresses- while she has a little tiny body and she's not worried about calling attention to or detracting attention from certain body parts?  Clothing for little kids ought to be FUN!  Clothing for adults can still be "fun," but not FUN in the way I think little kids' clothing ought to be.

With that said, I'm not trying to keep Zoe a little kid forever.  I don't want her to be an eleven-year-old who doesn't speak to adults unless she has to, and then uses a widdle baby voice to say what's on her mind.  I don't see myself having a super sense of humor if she's throwing food on the floor for a reaction late in toddlerhood- she doesn't really even do that now! Behavior-wise, my favorite little kids are the ones who act like little (well-mannered) adults (at least out in public and around people- at home, let 'em be little hooligans!), but look and dress the part of little kids.  I don't think a three-year-old needs to be wearing pumps or kitten-heels, unless she's playing dress-up.  I definitely don't go for the kinderslut movement. 

Thankfully, for all the mini adult clothes that come in sizes for kids as small as Zoe, or even newborn-size, there are still the Carter's and OshKosh B'Gosh and Okie Dokie and Zutano, to keep my little kid looking like a little kid for a little while longer!