GQ Munchkin

Like I said before, persuasion was the name of the game for me as a kid. However, there were some instances persuasion just wouldn't cut it. For these special situations I would adopt a Carpe Omnia (Seize Everything), "my way or the highway" attitude with my parents. But could they have really known any better than to submit to my every wish? After all, I was the first-born.

Apparently, the first-born is a big deal. THAT baby is the one that gets a bunch of randommm shit from wide-eyed, Catholic grandparents who are ever so hopeful that more are on the way. THAT baby doesn't know it yet but they're about to be the one who is scrubbed, gorged, tickled, pampered, poked and experimented on by self-conscious, sleep-deprived first timers.

In my house, I was no exception and one thing my mom went bonkers for was dressing me up. Vests, trendy miniature hairstyles, and corduroys were among the many things my mother tried out on me and I went along with it like the drooling, powerless mooky that I was.

One day, the miniature version of me caught on and realized what was happening: I had become my mother's accessory. A baby dressed just perfectly to compliment every outfit. I eventually glanced at myself in the mirror and saw, for the first time, what my mother saw: A portable, GQ munchkin. That day I determined one thing: the baby fashion madness had to end. Realizing what I had become was the hard part. Everything else, from that point forward, was easy as pie. I simply put on my munchkin sweatpants that my mother had so conveniently placed in the back of my closet and waited. When Kelly came in with Baby Gap bags, I knew what I had to do. I held onto my sweatpants for dear life. When Kelly tried to dress me while still incorporating the sweatpants I wriggled free. I never saw another Baby Gap bag and ceased wearing all clothing with buttons, snaps, zippers, and ties. Elastic and velcro became my staples and I was happy as a clam.

For some reason, my sister was plighted by the same dress-the-baby-up fever of my mother. However,  my sister was subject to many more outfits sported on many more outings than I had been. The reason my mother turned up the heat this time around?  Maybe because my sister was the first girl. More likely, was the fact that I had established that there was no longer any hope for me to be categorized as a "trendy baby" and my sister was the last hope, the final frontier.

In any case, my sister soon caught on, as I had years before, only this time her reaction was to wear a hand-me-down dress from our cousin Dana for two weeks straight. She slept in it, played in it, and, to my knowledge, even bathed in it.

How my parents dealt with the most stubborn monkeys east of the Mississippi still boggles me. I can only hope any future monkeys to come won't follow in our footsteps.