Peeling Layers

My second son, Brandon, has developed a very quirky behavior. He wears several layers of clothing at all times (except when he takes a bath). Not just 2 or 3 layers - More like 7 or 10 layers.

The fact that he looks ridiculous is of no concern to me.

It is the inconvenience of all those layers that is bothersome to me.

I think the problem started when he was wearing just one layer of clothing. He would change his clothes several times a day, turning his drawers out and leaving his clothes all over the floor, but ending up in the same outfit. I decided that if he had less clothes, he would have fewer things to leave on the floor and fewer things for me to pick up a thousand times a day. So, I told him, you can pick 5 shirts and 5 pants and the rest I will put away. He agreeably chose his articles. I took the remaining clothes and put them in a big garbage bag to store in the attic until Colin was big enough to use them. I think he saw the garbage bag and thought I was throwing his stuff away.

So, when I was busy doing something else, he snuck over and took his clothes back. I found them (all over the floor) and took them away again.

Later, he snuck over and took the clothing back - again. The cleaver little guy hid his clothes in little piles ALL Over the HOUSE! I found the clothes a little at a time and stored them away again.

Yup.

He went back and retrieved his clothing again. This time he was even more ingenious in his retrieval effort. He decided that if he was wearing the clothes, I couldn't take them away again. This is when he started wearing layer upon layer of clothing.

Ok.

I get it.

It's your stuff and it's not right to take them away from you. You can keep your stuff, but take care of them.

Unfortunately, I think the damage has been done and he refuses to slim down his attire. So, I decided, I will just let it alone, for now, and have him pick up his own clothes several times a day...Which can take forever and is very inconvenient since I have to stand there and make sure he actually does the job.

He continues to change his clothes several times a day, and still ends up in the same outfit (but the layers are usually in a different order). He still leaves all his clothes scattered on the bedroom floor and I still have to stand there and watch him slowly put them away. But this is only the beginning of the multitude of challenges that arise from this peculiarity.

It becomes a significant obstacle when nature calls.

One evening when we were out to dinner, he needed to go to the bathroom. I took him to the bathroom - which was very cold - like at least 10 degrees colder than the rest of the restaurant. He needed to go #2. Well, it turns out that at the bottom of all those layers (9 layers all together) he was wearing feetie pajamas. So, we had to take off 8 shirts and pull down 2 pairs of pants before we got to the feetie pajamas which we also had to take down (incidentally, he had undies and socks on inside the feeties). There he sat, in the freezing cold public bathroom, nearly naked - his skinny little body shivering on the toilet seat. I thought that would teach him a lesson.

Not.

A few days later, he had diarrhea. Still wearing several layers of clothing, he ran to the bathroom and had to take off all his clothing to sit on the seat. Yup. You guessed it. He didn't make it. He shat in his undies. He almost made it, but the zipper of the feeties got stuck and he couldn't pull them down fast enough.

Yet still there is another problem with him wearing all his clothes at the same time. When can I wash them? I guess I don't really need to wash every layer - probably just the top layer and the bottom layer...Oh, I forgot, he rotates the layers so I guess I do need to wash them all. But how do I get them off his body. He wears them to bed too. Maybe when he is in the bathtub I will heist them...But I'm afraid this will only fuel the fire - or maybe start something else...Something worse...

Still, there is another problem to all these layers. As I mentioned, he also wears layers to bed at night. We keep our home very warm and he likes to sleep under a lot of blankets...So he gets sweaty in the night and then his hair sticks up in the morning.

Finally, the thing that I dislike the most about this behavior is that I can't see his "cutie little body". Again, it's not that I care if he looks ridiculous or not. It's just that he is such a cute kid with such an adorable, agile little body - and I get so much pleasure from looking at him and watching him move.

So...I guess I can only wait it out...Patiently...And hope it will end before summer comes.