That is one colorful child!

As most who know me would agree, I have a tendency to be a little OCD about things matching. Things like, clothes, shoes, and socks. Now, I have four new children who are not as concerned about this as I am. I have struggled with where the line is between helping them and making them feel criticized. Right after we got married, Kerry and I took the kids on a "family moon" to Disneyland. The second day in Disneyland Serena got all dressed. She had on a pair of lavender stretchy pants and a red Christmas shirt with gold pin-stripes through it (I know it was a Christmas shirt because I bought it for her last Christmas). The shirt and pants matched really well with her turquoise socks. I know you can't see it all in the picture, but you just take my word for it. I remember it vividly. In the morning, I said to her (remember I am trying to help them make more suitable choices without being critical) "You know Serena, you will probably get hot wearing that long sleeve shirt today, why don't we go see if we can find something a little more suitable for the warm weather" To which Kerry, who really was trying to help, jumped in and said, "she will be fine." So we took Serena to Disneyland wearing red and gold, lavender, turquoise, and last but not least pink and white striped sneakers. By the end of the day, I was really patting myself on the back, after all I had spent the whole day with her dressed like that and had not had any less fun than if she had matched perfectly. One the way out of the park that afternoon Serena somehow got separated from the rest of us. We found a safe place for others to wait, Kerry doubled back to where we had last seen her and I went and found a security guard. Can you guess his first question? "What was she wearing?" So, I described exactly what she was wearing to the guard, right down to her pink and white sneakers and turquoise socks. He wrote it all down then took a glance back over his notes and said "that is one colorful child!" Less than 3 minutes later Disneyland security had located her and came to get us to take us to where she was. I cant help wondering if I would have said she is wearing blue jeans and a white t-shirt how long it might have taken us to find her.