Baby dolls pits

Hand-me-downs are a right of passage in the Nowell house. You KNOW you are loved when you receive them, because each item you try on is eyed suspiciously by its previous owner and met with "UH, that's MY shirt/ shorts/pants/underwear"* To which I politely explain, "this USED to be yours, but it no longer fits, so it is now ______'s" (insert name of lucky recipient).

The usual response from our lucky hand-me-down contestant is something between a Superbowl end zone dance and some funky Latin dance move I don't even think has been invented yet, combined with the strains of "oh yeah, oh yeah", generally meant to convey to the older sibling "I got some ice cream, you don't got no ice cream"** Then I get the "MMMOOOOMMMM" and we start this little dance all over again.

This time, though, the hand-me-down fairy didn't fare so well. Baby doll didn't like the coordinating Nike orange/gray/white sleeveless tank and shorts even though he looked flat adorable in them***. He fussed, he adjusted, he cried, he practically spit green pea soup trying to get me to take this outfit off. I just couldn't understand.

Then he dropped the bomb: he didn't like the kids at Preschool seeing his "nipples". This hit me wrong on so many levels I didn't know where to start...

1. How did he learn the word "nipple"?
2. Into what whacked position were these kids getting if they could see nipple? I could see nada.
3. How did the style gene skip his generation and mine? Because he was missing out on an opportunity to look stellar....

So, I changed him and forgot about the nipple incident. Round one to the kid.

Until a few weeks later when said outfit was the only thing in sight that was clean (a continuous problem in our house until the coveted W/D of 2009). I'm not sure if it was the gnashing of teeth, my desire to not be late for the billionth time, or concern over the cost of his future psychologist visits that would, no doubt, be necessary after this perceived cruelty****, but something made me ask the question, "Why are you so worried about the kids seeing your nipples? You know it's ok for boys to show their nipples, but not girls, right?" To which my love bug said, pointing to his ARMPITS, "I just don't like them showing."

One undershirt later, we were jammin' out the door, which just totally proves the adage "Knowledge is POWER."

Ding, ding. Round two goes to MOM!

Oh, and in case you are wondering, he now knows the difference between an armpit and a nipple.


*Yes, I send underwear down the line if they don't have holes or serious marks. Sue me.

**Eddie Murphy, Delerious stand-up skit. His language will singe your ears but you'll be laughing while they burn.

***Stylin', I tell you, stylin'.

**** "For the fourteenth time, Dr. Spock, I was only THREE and she MADE ME SHOW MY NIPPLES!!! It was MORTIFYING, I tell you. MORTIFYING."