This dress is stuck in my head:

I cannot shake it loose–I keep seeing this darling arrangement of silk floral fabric enveloped around my daughter. Two things make that scenario impossible. It does not come in her size, and it is too expensive. I need either a baby girl to put the dress on or a winning Lotto ticket. My Magic 8 ball says that neither is in my future.

So I will remember the blessings that I do have–a daughter who is seven and developing her own fashion tastes as the minutes tick by, and four sons. I love my boys, but I am tired of their clothes. There are a limited number of themes allowed in the world of boy “fashion”.

Dinosaurs/Reptiles: A paleontologist’s dream dig could occur in the dressers of my boys’ room. There are T-Rexes, Brachiosaurus and Pterodactyls represented in all their snarling glory. Lizards, alligators, crocodiles snap away on their shirts. Snakes slither, newts do what newts do. Why do the cold-blooded creatures receive such status as boy fashion-icon? Why don’t boys like ducklings? Sweet little yellow ducklings?

Sports: Footballs, baseballs, basketballs, soccer balls. How tiresome it is to see balls on boys’ clothing. As if a two month old has a clue what a basketball is for–to him, it could be a giant breast or daddy’s bald head. My boys have countless shirts with sports equipment emblazoned across the front. It does not make them more athletic. It does not make them look athletic. I challenge anyone to find a REAL football player who would wear a shirt with a picture of a football on it that has the word “Football” underneath it. He doesn’t need to. Why must boys sport sports?

Transportation: Yes, boys are fascinated with things that go “vrrroooom!” So why don’t they make clothes with pictures of vacuum cleaners on the front? Or hair dryers? Trains, planes, and automobiles, a few speedboats, and even bicycles–my boys could go around the world in style with all the transportation modes represented in their clothes. And they could go fast! Sammy has pajamas with flaming race cars. This is something I want him to avoid at all costs. I might as well dress him in pajamas with a fun knife-juggling motif, or teddy bears drinking bleach.

A Combination of All Three: The worst in boy’s fashion is when all three of the over-used motifs are represented. Picture an iguana wearing a football helmet landing a plane on an aircraft carrier manned by soccer-playing Raptors, with the word “dude” on it somewhere. Why do you never see a t-shirt in the boys department with a chess-playing bunny, or a duckling riding a tricycle to the library?

And finally, Stripes: When the “designers” of boys clothing are stumped, they turn to the classic Stripey shirt. We have striped shirts in every color. Some are thick stripes, some are thin. Some are a flashy combination of thin and thick. What do stripes represent? Why stripes? I think of the old jailhouse jumpsuits, black and white striped. Maybe to prepare them for a life of crime and punishment? Football fields have stripes, military uniforms, the street, race cars, and tigers. Stripe City!

Closely related to stripes are the Plaids–stripes that aren’t limited to horizontal boundaries. Plaids are stripes set free to run vertically too. How rebellious is plaid! Stripes gone wild! Not to put down all the contributions of the Scots, but did they ever imagine that their famous Tartan designs would be relegated to flannel shirts and a look known as “slacker”?

At this moment, Joel is wearing a navy blue shirt with varsity-styled numbers on the front. Apparently, he is #43. There is a football-shaped patch on his shoulders. I can attest that Joel has no clue that he looks like he is ready for the big game. I may have commited some sort of boy-clothing sin by mixing motifs, however. His pants have a dump truck on the leg. Tommy’s shirt is also football jersey styled. It simply says “Athletic Squad” and he is #15–a Quarterback, perhaps. Sammy is Stripe-Man today, black, red, and white. Ryley is at school, wearing a sweatshirt that declares he is head of the pit-crew. He is not.