Dressing Up

Mrs J has taken G down to her regular Monday afternoon mums-and-babies group at Manchester Town Hall. There isn't much in the way of organised activities on offer for parents who live in the city centre, in fact this is just about all there is, so Mrs J has been trying to make it down every week. When she first went down G was just in one of her ordinary sleepsuits (after all, G was asleep, as she usually is when a pram journey is involved), but it turned out all of the other mums had dressed their babies up in proper clothes. Clearly turning up with our daughter in pyjamas just wasn't going to cut it, so we would have to start copying everyone else, if only to avoid the mums-and-babies group equivalent of gossiping at the school gates.

Being only six weeks old, G has about as much interest in clothes as I do. She's a girl, so no doubt that'll change when she's grown up a bit, but for now any attempt to get her out of her comfy sleepsuits and into something resembling real clothes meets with fierce resistance. The picture above shows Mrs J battling with just this problem earlier on. But even though it's possible after a bit of a struggle to get G into her clothes, the real difficulties begin when it's time to get her out of them again.

Sleepsuits are basically just pieces of cotton with lots of strategically placed poppers on them, which means it's easy to get them on and off when it's time for a nappy change. And it's still easy to get them on and off when it's time for another nappy change 45 seconds after the last one (this happens quite a lot). Maybe it's just because I'm male and have no experience of putting on tights like the ones G is wearing in the photo, but when I have to try to take G's on and off it usually ends up taking several minutes, during which time the fidgeting turns to crying then to all-out screaming. If I'm ever allowed to shop for baby clothes, I'm definitely going for some dungarees.