My years of academic debate over nature vs nurture, over social engineering and a new feminist agenda had me predisposed against boys in blue and girls in pink. Nonetheless, as a mom I was also not about to give up everything blue nor everything pink just because it corresponded with the prescribed socialization of our children. Many of these outfits survived my initial severe but brief judgement "ugh another example of if its a boy it has to be blue." I kept my contemptful-self at bay, by giving more ample reigns to my sincere joy and gratitude to at receiving the gift.

I consider it an honor to partake in the ritual of gift-giving, a ritual that has celebrated and reinforced the binds between individuals and families. Apathy and the growing geographical distance between friends and family erode at this ancient ritual and as privacy is valued over neighbors and independence over interdependence I see a lonely sad unsocialized trend I do not want to bequeath my children. So putting a greater value on the importance of diversity of experience, appreciation and thought, I welcomed these cute clothes in and embraced making them part of the fabric of our boys toddlerhood.

My parents gave these blue outfits to Javier. I used to think of them as my princely blue outfits. They were made out of linnen and I found them to be classically elegant. Amidst the many baby clothes that focus on contemporary children patterns or adult fashion for babies these peices spoke to me of fabrics fashionable throughout many a past generation adapted slightly to these modern times by being fashioned into jumpsuits. Javier wore them to church often. I enjoyed dressing him in them because I felt his infant days were prolonged in these Petit Prince outfits.

This beautiful blue cotton outfit was given to Jaimito by his godparents. Aside from the blue, when I first saw it I marvelled at the cuteness of the duckies playing hide and seek. Duckies did not overrun the ensemble they were fuzzy cute embroidered accents, playful and creative. This was a two peice set of heavy ribbed cotton that could have well have lasted being used by 4 more little boys. Because it was heavy cotton, had a jacket, and was so cute, Jaimito wore it on his first airplane trip to visit his Grandparents in St. Louis during the winter of 2002. Mama Weez adn Papa Jim first held Jaimito in these adorable clothes. Javier also used this outfit on his first trip to St. Louis, but being a month older at the time of wearing it was a bit short on him and left his bottom legs exposed to the cold air of winter in 2005. Javier traveled that year with larger jumpsuit with footsies but kept the duckie ribbed blue vest for cuteness, warmth and sentimental reasons.

I believe it was family friends in Killeen Texas who sent this outfit to Jaimito upon hearing of his birth. If it was not given to us by the Cumba or Rosa family it might have come from my Mom’s cousin in Virginia. Unfortunately I sometimes loose track of these details but I do know it came from afar and that made it all the more special. I loved using it because the fabric was really light cotton. It had a cute frog prince patch on the chest and racing stripes down the side of the pant legs. Both Jaimito and Javier used it and looked like big little toddlers. It was a good outfit to go out to restaurants and visit friends and family because it was light and covered their knees when crawling around on hard tile floors of the tropics.