Odd kid fixations

[TravelingGal]

Amelia has been fixated on wearing a jacket outside...annoying when it's summer! And not only MUST she wear a jacket - it has to be zipped up all the way. I'm wondering if it's some kind of security blanket thing. She absolutely wails in despair when she doesn't have her jacket on when she goes outside.

Do your kids have any weird fixations?

 

[ericad]

My DD (age 5) gets fixated on one pair of shoes and it must only be that pair of shoes until she moves on to the next pair of shoes. Doesn't matter if they aren't climate-appropriate or even if she's uncomfortable. She's that way about a lot of things. I figure kids have so few choices in life, and I have to choose my battles, so I let her run with it as long as it isn't something dangerous of course.

 

[soocool]

Age 3 DD wore a bathing suit the entire winter. If we went out she wore it under her clothes.

Age 4 - she wore a princess nightgown everyday for at least 6 months (day and night) - I bought several so I could wash in between

Age 5 - insisted on wearing her dress up clothes everywhere for at least 3 months (once to church she wore her boa, sparkle skirt and plastic heels)

I think I lost track after that. She does have a robe (tweety bird) that she puts on as soon as she gets home from anywhere until she goes to bed and sometimes sleeps in it - DD is 17 and would kill me for posting this.

 

[lyra]

At around 3 or so A. used to wear this ratty dark purple sweater cardigan (misbuttoned) of her older sister, a black velvet wide brimmed hat with a large peony in the front, and an umbrella...EVERYWHERE and EVERYDAY. We used to call her the Bag Lady because she'd put on the sweater, hat and umbrella as soon as she woke up, on top of her nightie and then carry a bunch of toys in a plastic bag. We have pics.

She is now 20, and is a fashionista--of her own unique style though. She is very artsy too.

 

[doodle]

I remember my brother going through one of those streaks as a kid. My poor mother--the only shoes my brother would wear anywhere were either my Minnie Mouse "plip plops" as he called them or my white patent Mary Janes. People would make some rather unkind remarks about him wearing girl shoes, and Mom would just sigh and say, "Yeah, his sisters made him play Pretty Pretty Princess a few too many times."

My cousin was obsessed with Michael Jackson for about a year. Everywhere my aunt took her, my cousin insisted people call her Michael. She got in trouble for moonwalking in class about a dozen times in kindergarten, and yes, I was delighted to tell this story at her rehearsal dinner, bwahaha!!!

ETA. Hmm, considering family history with this sort of thing, I'm second guessing whether I should ever have kids. There's something strange in my gene pool!!

 

[TravelingGal]

These are cracking me up...and scaring me. And I thought this jacket fixation was annoying.....

 

[dragonfly411]

My sister kept her pappy till she was 4. She hid them from my parents.

From ages 3-5 she would ONLY wear dresses and patent leather shoes with socks.

She insisted on being half naked at home, even in the dead of winter, until she was about five.

She's always been the diva, so the dresses and patent leather shoes TOTALLY make sense.


I was different. In 2-3rd grade I insisted on stretchy bike shorts with tee shirts and sam and libbies.

In fifth grade it was overalls.

These days it's guy harvey or plaid shirts and jeans.

I have three sets of pajamas I wear. I own about 20, but I only wear the three.

 

[Jennifer W]

Amelia has been fixated on wearing a jacket outside...annoying when it's summer! And not only MUST she wear a jacket - it has to be zipped up all the way. I'm wondering if it's some kind of security blanket thing. She absolutely wails in despair when she doesn't have her jacket on when she goes outside.

Once again, I don't need to add anything to your post, not even to change the name of the kid.

I'm actually quite relieved to read this thread, because A's fixations on the jacket (and also rubber boots to go into the garden) were starting to strike me as a little too rigid. Too big a deal if they were thwarted.

 

[elrohwen]

No kids, but I was fixated on Snoopy - I watched "The Easter Beagle" every day for a year.

Ironically, I don't remember the movie AT ALL. My mom can quote every word though

 

[dragonfly411]

Elro - I did this with The Land Before Time and Dirty Dancing. My sister did it with Hocus Pocus.

 

[somethingshiny]

For 2 years, JT has insisted on being in just underwear whenever possible, even in the dead of winter. If it's cold, he takes the comforter off his bed and wears it around the house because he won't put on clothes. This doesn't particularly bother me because who wouldn't want to walk around in their underwear!?

The hard one is regarding his blanket on his bed. It has to be a very specific way. And he insists on buttoning the top button on all of his clothes. Thank God I finally broke him of his socks and sandals habit!

 

[softly softly]

My DD (age 5) gets fixated on one pair of shoes and it must only be that pair of shoes until she moves on to the next pair of shoes. Doesn't matter if they aren't climate-appropriate or even if she's uncomfortable. She's that way about a lot of things. I figure kids have so few choices in life, and I have to choose my battles, so I let her run with it as long as it isn't something dangerous of course.

My son (almost 6) is the same and always has been. I literally have to mark a date on the calendar and tell him that is the time we will be changing over from winter to summer shoes, and even then he goes through a period of reluctance to make the transition. Thank goodness his feet don't seem to grow especially fast!

When he was 2 he developed a fixation on a pair of woollen gloves because they had numbers on the fingers and insisted on wearing them at all times regardless of the weather. I'm really glad he grew out of that one.

Actually that reminds me of a non-clothing related fixation he had at that age. When he was starting to learn his letters he decided that the letter T was his absolute favourite and every time I would take him to the park he would insist on dragging me over to a park bench with a particularly rude piece of graffiti scrawled on it because it had lots of Ts in it. I remember he would joyfully exclaim 'look mummy T!!!' while I was silently thankful he was unable to read.

 

[Nashville]

My daughter has to carry around a string at all times. It's actually this old piece of boat rope that my MIL gave her like a year ago, and now she always has to have it. She just carries it around everywhere. I know most kids go through the stage of having a lovey like a bear, or a blanket, but seriously... a ratty piece of boat rope??? Oh well!