grrrrranimals

The girls are having problems matching their clothes.

Is it nature or nurture? Let’s take a look, shall we?

Nurture, part I
The girls have spent considerable time with their adopted dad, the Pastor. I love the Pastor dearly. Yes, he was a great single dad and he tried really hard. A+++++ for that. But let’s face it. Men should not dress little girls. (Nor should they undress them, but that’s a whole other topic.)

If it weren’t for me being around, the girls entire wardrobe would consist of the Pastor’s glorious Goodwill finds – yes, while they may be great deals, nothing involves the concept of an “outfit” and in the end it’s a bunch of pieces that don’t match. I think he tried to remedy this somewhat by purchasing a lot of black athletic shorts. Black goes with anything, right? No. Little girls who run around in sloppy track shorts grow up to be big girls who go to their college classes wearing unattractive sweat pants with the crotch hanging down to their knees, no make-up, house-shoes and a ponytail pulled into a sloppy knot.

Nurture, part II
Their adopted mom hasn’t exactly instilled a sense of style into the girls by wearing the same pair of denim Capri pants every day with – get this – a T-SHIRT - and thinking that a baseball cap counts as an accessory.

I tried to wear a t-shirt once. I couldn’t even stand to walk around my house with it on for 5 minutes. Then I came to my senses and put on something fabulous.

Nature
Well, when your bio-dad is a drug dealer and your bio-mom is the kind of gal that has illegitimate children fathered by drug dealers, that leaves you with the fashion sense of wanting to wear either a prison jumpsuit or if you are out and about, say going to Wal-Mart, your stretchy stirrup pants with your hair in a scrunchy.

That leaves me, evil step-mother/fashion guru. Clothes matcher extraordinaire.

Case in point.

I bought Loretta a pair of Mudd camo pants. Cute camo pants, not Patty Hearst camo pants.

Robyn, what can I wear with these?

Well Loretta, you can wear ANYTHING with camo pants, except let’s not wear orange because you will look like a little huntress. Also, let’s especially not wear red. We don’t want to look like Christmas. OK? Got that? No red. That’s n-o r-e-d. Let me sound it out for you. Noooooooooooooooo redddddddddddddddddddd.

Pink is good. That pink t-shirt would look cute. Your Cinderella shirt? Yes, you can wear that. Your clown shirt? Yes. JUST NO RED.

Repeat this conversation about four times.

Then we come to the part of the story where Loretta asks what about this RED t-shirt with a heart on it?

NO R-E-D.

I swear, I felt just like Helen Keller’s teacher.

Then on the flip side, I have my own bio-child. The one who will run down the hall if he hears any sort of inkling that someone is wondering what goes with what. The one who is concerned that because he is SO GOOD at helping match things that he might be gay. I told him that doesn’t make you gay, but even if you are gay, Mommy will always love you.

Unless you wear stirrup pants.