I overheard the strangest thing the other morning...

But first some background. Cuyler is our third child, he is 19mos younger than our only daughter and 6yrs younger than our oldest. When he was born I began dressing him and Catherine (and sometimes Preston - esp for pictures) in similar outfits of the same color.

Two years later, Cade arrived. Preston was 8, I let him wear what he wanted - mostly! But the three babies (3.5yrs,22ms and newborn) still needed mom to help dress them. So if I was in a blue mood, everyone wore blue. Or an orange mood, you get the idea. Then I began searching for outfits that were the same for the boys and got Cici a dress in the same color. They looked so adorable.

Two years later Geoffrey arrived. Preston was 10 - he was NOT going for this wear the same as the little guys thing - I actually only tried a couple of times, plus his clothes were in a different dept and kinda hard to match to the little ones. BUT those cute little stairstep guys! I bought a newborn, 12mos (Cade was always little) and 3T in the same outfit. Actually the only clothes they had that did not match each other were hand me downs from friends!

And life continued in this happy little way. At about 7 Catherine began to fuss about matching the boys and I let her alone (mostly! If we are going on field trips we are ALL matching!) But the little guys did not protest, just accepted it as par for the course. These are our clothes, no biggie.

Cuyler is almost 10. He is not a little guy anymore. He is actually not a big boy, he is (gulp) a tweenager. No can't be he is still my little boy right please! Ok so he is growing up and has asked me - very respectfully- if he could not dress like his brothers.

So we came to a little agreement. If there are pictures, dress similar, fieldtrips or family outings, dress the same. Day to day stuff (deep breath mom) ok, you can dress differently. And life is happy again.

It was Co-op day, ya know the day you see all your friends. I picked out weather appropriate, stain free, hole free clothing. (Purposley did not match them to eachother). From their room I hear Cuyler telling Cade, "No dude, put back that shirt mom got you, we need to wear our red shirts today."

WHAT! (slighlty grinning to myself - they do look so cute!) Next thing I saw, Cuyler and Cade in matching shirts and shorts. and Geoffrey - jeans and a green tshirt - different drummer kinda guy!