Every day, it’s the same story. It starts slowly. I come home from work and see that my son has taken off his shorts and is sitting in his underwear and T-shirt, playing Legos.
While I’m cooking dinner, I notice that my daughter has somehow wiggled out of her pants and is prancing around the house with a diaper clad butt, T-shirt and shoes. By the time dinner is served, both kids are topless.
Which, of course, makes me shake my head and call them barbarians. We obviously don’t “dress” for dinner.
It’s also greatly reduced spaghetti stains.
After dinner, they wash their hands and faces and head outside to our fenced yard to play while I clean up from dinner. When I go to join them for our gardening chores, they’re naked.
Naked and running around like a couple of kids on spring break.
My daughter toddles up to me, her chunky legs and protruding belly so adorable, I want to grab her and tickle it. “I nakky!”
“Yes, love. You are indeed naked.”
“Me too, mama! I’m naked too,” my son yells as he turns naked cartwheels in the grass.
“I see that.”
It doesn’t matter if it’s just me and the kids or if we have a house full of company, at some point the kids’ clothes come off. They run through the sprinklers giving the garden a late evening drink. They paint their bodies with sidewalk chalk and become tigers. They fall flat on their backs in the grass and laugh at the tickling sensation.
For a short time, I tried to teach them to keep their clothes on. At least while playing outside. There was one problem. I didn’t have an answer for “why”.
Except “why not”?
