clothing
Some Things Just Never Change
As soon as it got a little bit chilly, it was time to put socks back on the beast. Maddie has been wearing shoes for a couple months now, but all of our old sock issues have come back in full force.
The sock terrorist has once again declared a jihad against her infidel socks. The only difference now is that there is no struggle. Maddie grips it and rips it and the offending piece of clothing is gone in a flash.
It’s no longer any kind of challenge for her. The challenge now falls to her parents as the temperatures will continue to fall. Looks like little Maddie will be sporting high top shoes all winter long.
Baby Declares War Against Shoes
Maddie has never been a child who ever kept a pair of socks on for more than five minutes in her life. Now that she is walking, her parents face the impossible task of getting the baby to wear shoes. Hmmm, how did they not see that coming?
Let’s face it, we can’t have Jane of the Jungle running around parks, sidewalks and pools without protection for her feet. Somehow, Maddie missed the memo. The baby is determined to crush the institution of wearing shoes. Maddie is already studying the same infamous battle strategies she used during her previous campaigns against socks.
Socks couldn’t stand up to Maddie and she firmly believes that shoes will be no different.
((Also Read: Maddie’s Socks – Gone in 60 Seconds))
((Also Read: The Crazy Life of Maddie’s Feet))
Step 1: Always be prepared to strike without mercy. Maddie makes sure to start struggling with her shoes the second they are placed upon her feet.
Step 2: Complain vigorously. If the shoes don’t fall off, launch verbal assaults against the guilty parties who put the shoes on her in the first place.
Step 3: As soon as one shoe comes off, fire that bad boy off into space. The farther the parent has to chase the shoe, the more time you have to remove the other one.
Step 3-A: What works even better is to the drop the offending shoe or shoes into a perilous area. If the shoe winds up on a busy street or on the train tracks, that’s a big win. The shoe may be impossible to recover or possibly destroyed.
Step 4: Remove the shoe quietly and discard it while the parent is focused elsewhere. You never know when it might become a chew toy for a dog or large rat.
No Good Way to Undress a Tiger
Just moments after Maddie’s mom left for a business trip, things started to unravel for Stay Home PaPa. Before beginning our bedtime routine, I thought Maddie’s outfit seemed a little too fancy for feeding time.
We went back to the changing table to take care of what should have been a quick change. Within 20 seconds it became painfully obvious, “Houston, we have a problem.” I have no idea how her mother got this thing on the baby in the first place, but it was some type of Hannibal Lecter straight jacket that had NO intention of coming off.
And let me tell you, there are few things Maddie hates more than jerking around with difficult clothing. The longer we struggled, the more the baby’s frustration level edged towards the redline. C’mon, this isn’t my first ‘undress the baby’ rodeo, what was the ancient secret I was missing to undoing this Gordian Knot?
I obviously needed more room to maneuver. I scooped up Maddie and we went to the bed where we both would have some more room to work with. This only made things worse. Now Maddie was thrashing around like a Marlin on the hook and I was in grave danger of serious bodily injury. At this point, I was seriously considering gently ripping the back off of the garment for a nice clean removal.
Before taking this extreme measure, I decided to get a woman’s opinion. Maddie and I went downstairs to see if our neighbor Cynthia had any bright ideas for us. It turned out that getting this thing off was a two-person job.
We pried off that straight jacket, thanked Cynthia and headed upstairs for some dinner. Just as we got to the top of the stairs, Maddie ejected a stream of spit up that spackled a different neighbor’s door. “You can not be serious!” It took another trip to Cynthia’s door to get that mess cleaned up.
So Maddie’s mom is gone less than an hour and the baby and I are mired in some lost episode of the Three Stooges. This is shaping up to be a very exciting week!
Maddie’s Socks – Gone in 60 Seconds!
Maddie and her parents have been going toe to toe (that’s right) for several months now in the never ending battle to keep socks on the baby’s feet. Maddie is barely 5-months-old, yet we have been struggling to keep socks on her for about four of those months.
My little girl has perfected her sock disposal techniques into a true art form. Just as Brad Pitt became the master fly fisherman in Robert Redford‘s classic, “A River Runs Through It,” Maddie has mastered the art of sock-punching!
There I said it – my daughter is a sock-puncher. If the baby is awake – no pair of socks is safe on those wild feet for any length of time. Back when she was an amateur, she would shake and kick until they would eventually fall off.
Those days are long gone. Now, Maddie uses one foot to aid and abet the other in an effort to shrug off the offending sock within 60 seconds. When we visited Maddie’s grandparents during the holidays, we were constantly on the lookout for discarded socks around the house.
Sure we tried to outsmart the baby – we went out and purchased longer socks to thwart the baby’s best attempts to knock the socks off. It turns out that the longer socks are easier to knock off than the short ones.
I suppose we could just let the baby hang out with no socks on, but her feet get cold, so that is obviously not a viable option. I like to tuck them into the baby’s pants, but my wife has repeatedly cautioned me about such a fashion faux pas.
Suffice it say that we have given ourselves up to fate. We will continue the exhaustive sock “search and rescue” efforts until some company develops a baby sock with just a kiss of elastic in them. Until then, Maddie will delight in her parent’s fruitless attempts to keep those perpetual feet under cover.
Stay Home PaPa 