I had been saving Hayden's Thanksgiving outfit since May when I bought it at a fantastic sample sale-a precious corduroy burnt orange jon-jon with a squirrel aplique on the front. I paired it with a white peter pan collar button down and brown lace up shoes. He looked like the perfect angel child that he is (except when tired, hungry, thirsty, cold, hot or bored) and when he looked at himself in the full length mirror, he pointed to the squirrel and flashed a huge, dimply smile. "Success!" I thought to myself. When I told him to go show DaDa how cute he was, he tore out of his room to find him. DaDa took one look at him and said, "what is he wearing?" It was at this point that I realized that fathers don't understand jon-jons.
If you don't know what a jon-jon is, you are probably a) not from the South and/or b) not a mother of a boy. Imagine a one piece jumper either short or long, depending on the season, made of some type of adorable fabric, with precious little buttons at the straps. They usually have a matching shirt of some sort with piping or small details on the collar. Rarely, the collar may have some kind of lace or scalloping, but honestly, I think that's taking it a little far. When my dad used to see a little boy in a jon-jon, he would refer to him as "little Lord Fauntleroy" (see above) which is a bit of a stretch considering the Little Lord wore some sort of knickers, but this was my first introduction to men not understanding that moms of little boys need jon-jons.
For the record, I don't dress Hayden in a jon-jon for school or trips to the grocery store or otherwise mundane outings. Jon-jons are reserved for special occasions AND playdates with my friends who have little girls who always show up in precious little dresses with matching bloomers or tights and mary-janes adorned with a little flower. Sadly, jon-jons are the mother of a boys lame attempt to compete with tiny girls in dresses.
The lure of the jon-jon begins when the soon-to-be mother of a little boy goes on her first shopping excursion to find that perfect outfit. She finds herself in a section of the baby clothing store that is 1/100th the size of the little girls clothing section sifting through a bunch of striped oufits that look OK until you flip them over and see the words "mommy's little monkey" or " gone truckin'" or "junior firefighter". As the boys get a little bigger, the clothing manufacturers move past stripes and start using things like a skull and crossbones, reptiles, trucks, firetrucks, cars, bulldozers, footballs, etc. Hayden has all of these things in his closet, mostly because I have bought them out of frustration that this is it-this is what there is for little boys to wear. For Holidays, it's Argyle sweaters or sweaters with dogs on the front; maybe some plaid to spice it up. Meanwhile, over in the girls section, there are tufts of pink toile, polka dots, florals, velvet, glitter and everything I always wanted when I was little (but it was the 70s, so I mostly wore hand-me-down polyester jumpsuits). The jon-jon becomes the middle ground, the not-quite-dressing-your-little-boy-in-a-dress option.
The other thing about jon-jons is that their presence in a boys life is short-lived. I am hoping I can push it until Hayden is 2 because I have some really precious hand-me-downs from my nephew, Pierce. But I fear, as most mothers of little boys do, that as soon as Hayden can make his own decisions about what he'd like to wear, he'll opt for the skull and crossbones, or worse, the I heart NY t-shirt. Since Hayden has recently been classified by his pediatrician as a "strong-willed child", we may not make it until 2. But to me, when the jon-jon goes, my little baby is also gone. He will be a little boy, and I am not quite ready for that.
