MY FIVE-YEAR-OLD SON, COLIN, started selecting his own outfits just before he turned 2. Since then, his daily uniform has been a vehicle shirt, pants or shorts with stripes down the sides, vehicle socks, and Crocs. His system is to open his drawers and grab whatever vehicle shirt is on the top of the pile and pair it with whatever shorts are on top, and you can imagine what atrocious color combinations this creates. It is an amazing thing that Colin can be so concerned with fashion yet not fashionable.

Button shirts are just the cutest on little boys. But Colin will not wear them. He has an unnatural aversion to buttons that runs so deep that he is uncomfortable if anyone else in the family is wearing them. “Buttons” was one of his first words, and I thought that was sweet. Yes! Buttons! Isn’t your shirt cute? But apparently that’s not what he was trying to say at all.

I swore this loss of control over outfit selection would not happen with Annabelle. How I love choosing her outfits! Every day I dress her up and then photograph her, just like I used to do with Colin, before his independence reared its ugly head.

But just before she turned 2, it happened again. Colin wants to choose her outfit. I want to choose her outfit. But Annabelle listens to no one. “No!” she says, even if I select her favorite shirt that she was probably just about to grab. Now she wants to wear Lightning McQueen and Mater shirts with jeans. No dresses. No skirts. We have drawers full of hand-me-down clothes, so beautiful and photographable, but they lie untouched.

I think my mom dressed me until I was 17. She could go on dressing me for all I care. So how did I get these opinionated kids?

Colin plans to marry Annabelle when they are older. While the hemophilia and other incestual diseases are a turnoff, the real problem is their wardrobes. Here is a frequent discussion in our household:

Me: That will be cute. You can wear a button shirt, and Annabelle will wear a pretty dress.

Colin: No buttons! I will wear a vehicle shirt, and Annabelle will wear her yellow dress with the pink tutu.

Me: Not to your wedding! You have to wear a button shirt and tux to your wedding.

Colin: No, I want to wear my Crocs and a vehicle shirt.

Me: Crocs! To your wedding!

Colin: Yes. Annabelle will dress up and be pretty in her yellow dress.

Annabelle: Mater shirt.

Family photos are a big deal in our house. I’m careful to choose an orange shirt (sans buttons) for Colin because orange is his favorite color. This is a big family sacrifice. Do you know how hard it is to coordinate three other people’s outfits with bright orange? Despite all of us working around his outfit, Colin has to be coaxed and prodded into putting on a shirt without vehicles. Then, as soon as the photo shoot is over, the little martyr strips and puts on the spare outfit that we packed him. We haven’t even attempted a family photo since Annabelle’s newfound assertiveness has developed. Who knew our JCPenney’s photo shoot days were numbered?

Before Colin’s preschool pictures, I spent several days preparing him, explaining that he’d have to wear one of his nice, orange shirts. Though he was resistant, he capitulated, but only because I packed him an extra vehicle outfit and told him he could get it out of his school cubby and change after the picture. I thought I had planned for everything. But when he got to school, would you believe the photographers told him he had to put on a button shirt and a bow tie? Needless to say, Colin was not photographed that day.

It’s fine. No big deal. It’s just that I wanted to have a picture of Colin for each year he’s in school, and that dream has been mutilated and murdered before it was even allowed to flower. Plus, I saw other lucky parents’ bow tie pictures of their sons, and they were so. So. Cute.

Of course I don’t want Colin to feel bad about it, but I will probably never get over this for the rest of my life. I believe this is called a First World problem. But so is movie pirating and the FBI is allowed to make a really big deal about that, so I’m entitled.

I guess I have to start getting used to this kind of thing now, though, since I’ll be the only parent hanging a wedding photo of her son and daughter in Lightning McQueen and Mater shirts. Won’t that be a conversational piece? (I mean the shirts, not the incestual wedding.)

Kirstin Odegaard runs the Benicia Tutoring Center. Read and comment on her writings at www.kodegaard.com.