a bad shirt

Andy is, of late, what I would generally call a "hot mess". He's uber-sensitive about everything. He cries at the drop of a hat. He pouts. He whines. If he points out a truck and it's actually a steam roller, he sticks out his bottom lip, cries and tells you to go away and that he doesn't like you any more. It's awful. I think my recent decision to work 3 days a week is behind it, because now he attends 3 full days of preschool, and refuses to take a nap with the other children. Consequently, his circadian rhythms are totally off, and he's upset at the newest change in his school schedule too.

Anyway, one of his newest annoying things is a serious pickiness about his clothing. He hates 90% of what he wears and thus he wears the same few outfits over and over and over until they're disgusting and stainy.

So today I offered him a choice of two shirts. Both of which he hated. I told him he had to chose one of them so he chose the red train shirt. But in order to get him to actually wear it I had to promise that we'd put a coat over the shirt so nobody would see it. He wore the coat in 77-degree weather with 75% humidity for 4 hours. I had to wrestle him out of it after lunch for a nap.

When I got the coat off I hoped he'd forget about his despised train shirt. But he didn't.

Andy: Mommy can you take my train shirt off?

Me: Why, doodlebug?

Andy: Because I don't like it and I don't want to wear it.

Me: Why don't you like your nice train shirt, Andy?

Andy: Because it's too RED!