I love when children begin to dress themselves (especially girls). When I taught the three year olds at Riverchase on Wednesday nights one of the moms always let her little girl pick out her own outfit for the evening. I never knew what she'd look like when she came in. My favorite outfit was purple corduroy pants with one of her mom's tee shirts a pink ballet tutu and red ruby slippers.

I so know what you mean about missing out on the infant dressing stage. My girls (2 & 4 at the time of adoption) had both been dressing themselves 100% correctly, shoes & all, for quite some time before we met them. One would eventually allow me to dress her, the other was appalled at the thought of it. I was blown away by the way they could take a shirt without a tag and just know which way it went, hold it up to their chest backwards and upside-down and pull it up and over. They both still dress that way and I smile each and every time I see it. They are now almost 7 (on Sunday!) and 8.5 and I do love when we get home late from somewhere and they ask me to help them get jammies on. So very sweet. :)

Now I'm taking care of a friend's infant and I have been able to satisfy my dressing needs daily. It's fun, but it does get old at times. ;)

As for the shoes, when I taught preschool, I'd put a small smiley face with a sharpie on the outside of the inside of the shoe so they'd match up the smileys. Does that make sense? Like on the rubber part where the left shoe meets the right when they're matched up. Most kids caught on pretty quickly.

~Patti