Pink

Apparently, my parenting strategies are paying off.

Remember the time I bribed Rowan with chocolate to wear his corduroy pants? Those nice, navy blue, skater-boy, wide-wale, warm warm warm corduroy pants? Well, now I no longer have to bribe him. Just Monday, he voluntarily put them on. In fact, “voluntarily” is too mild a word — “insisted” is more like it. He even went so far as to dress himself, without any of the usual chasing and kicking that goes into getting dressed. He even paired them with a tasteful, long-sleeved, navy-and-red striped T-shirt.

It was 29°C and humid.

But to focus on the weather — or the fact that the pants were on backwards — would be missing the point, don’t you think?

The point is, Rowan's wardrobe choices are expanding. It helped that when we returned from our trip to Vancouver last month, the fleece sweatpants and the Thomas, rainbow, and “letters” T-shirts — the only things he wore — had all magically disappeared. Where did they go? I do not know. His new current favourites are a fuchsia button-up shirt with batiked fishies on it, and a pink-and-navy striped polo shirt that Rachel picked up for a song at Winners. Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but I speculate that it was reduced to clear because parents don’t want to dress their boys in pink. What do you think?

(P.S.: Rachel also wants me to mention that Rowan wants pink Crocs — like hers — and pink Dora pajamas to go with them. He may or may not get either of these things, but if he doesn’t it won’t be because they are pink. It will will be because every time we buy that boy a pair of sandals, he refuses to wear them, and because Dora is humourless and over-earnest and I am tired of Nickelodeon marketing to my son. How’s that for humourless and over-earnest?)