Cutesy-poopsy Matchy-matchiness

There are many MANY parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends of the family, what the hell ever- out there, who when they have or see two children (especially twins) who are part of the same family, decide they absolutely MUST match. Matching hair styles, matching clothes, matching hats, matching everything- and then everyone around them goes all frothy at the mouth about how "cute" it is.
Well aren't they just DARLING? Look at their matching lil' outfits! Oh my WORD

I am not one of those people. It's not that I'm a hater on those who do, I just don't. Part of me thinks it stems from my grandmother making my cousin and I matching dresses for EVERY holiday and how much we frickin' hated it. I think one year she even made matching outfits for the boy cousins. I think that was also the last year she did it, thank goodness (love you gra-mama!)
Scarred for life, y'all. I have 2 boys that are 2 years alike that I am told look identical- and I do not match them, ever. When I accidentally have them in the same color shirt I get this panicked feeling like people will think I tried to match them and then will make comments about their adorable matching shirts and a little piece of my insides will die, for it was unintentional and I am NOT THAT CUTESY. I don't do cutesy-poopsy. I can't do cutesy-poopsy; I am allergic to cutesy-poopsy.

Family pictures? There is a trend of dressing alike for them. Jeans and white t-shirts, all wearing red christmas sweaters, or button up flannel shirts (am I thinking of the 80s? I didn't get much sleep last night).
I just can't do it. I can't! I like to coordinate, but not so much that it starts falling into matchy-matchy territory. The thought makes my whole body cringe.

See? No snark. Just AWW

I'm having trouble even explaining it, to be honest. If you have kids and you match them, especially twins- I might even AWWW at yours if I happen to walk by them. No, it wouldn't even be a snarky AWWW. Well, unless it's every single day, then it might be snarky- but otherwise not at all! Really! I promise! I might not be able to tell your kids apart if they happen to be the same gender- but that does not require snark.

It's not like the boys ASK me to wear matching outfits and I balk in their face about it. I might let them if they asked, and then when people started making cutesy comments, I would blame them... but I also don't buy them any matching clothes. Ever. Never ever. I guess if it were something really awesome I might, but probably not.

This Halloween I had high hopes. I love Halloween. Halloween is my Superbowl. I love the decorations and the candy and dressing the kids up and trick or treating. I also love feeling satisfied that my kids have awesome costumes that work together really well. One year Holden was a Knight and Parker was the monster he was going to slay. Last year Holden was Jake and Parker was Cubby from "Jake and the Neverland Pirates"

This year I had hoped we could all be characters from The Nightmare Before Christmas- and I even had the kids on board with the whole thing (SHOCK!). Then I realized that the only costumes that are for sale are not ones I wanted and that would mean having to make them myself which would include paper mache and I simple said "Fuck"
That wasn't going to happen. I didn't realize that wasn't going to happen until yesterday, two measly weeks from Halloween. Meaning that all of the costumes that aren't ugly or ridiculous or cutesy-poopsy would be sold out. And expensive. And damnit, what the hell am I going to do?
Duh. The internet.

So I did. I went online, and when I found some not-so ridiculous prices, I let the boys have a look at the options (they both wanted to be something 'scary' this year... there are not many options in the manufactured costume department for a toddler to be scary)- and what do you know... they picked the SAME DAMN ONE. And what do you know again- it came in both sizes. And what do you know for a THIRD time- they were cheap, I got 25% off and free shipping.

What does this mean? It means, and I am cringing, that my kids will be... yes... I'm going to say it: MATCHING on Halloween. I tried to warn them they would be wearing the same thing, and they wanted to.
I started thinking that someone had better save me because I'm going to be getting those cutesy-poopsy "OH HOW CUTE THEY MATCH!" comments for a full 3 hours, and it's going to take every ounce of my better judgment not to go all spork crazy.
And then I had a moment of clarity, which less face it- are rare these days- when I realized that my kids are quickly growing out of the age where I can tell them what to wear (especially in the costume area) and soon will be the age where I won't be the one picking out the clothes in the store- it'll be them. Which means very soon upon me is the time they grow out of thinking that matching is "cool" and instead see it as frightening as I do, and embarrassing, and start calling me "mom"-

For that reason, I will revel in this horrible matchy-matchy cutesy-poopsy Halloween horror. ONE NIGHT ONLY... because it could very well be the last heinous matching they will ever want to do.