Freedom.

What is it about stripping off?  I took my eye off the ball for 2 minutes earlier to print out some instructions for fitting a lavatory flush (I had managed, in my cack handed way, to break the brand new one already) and turned round to find that all 3 older ones had stripped off and were running round the garden with no clothes on, jumping in the paddling pool that still had water in it from their impromptu outside bath yesterday evening (with the baby having a somewhat warmer bath in the kitchen sink).

The stripping off happens almost every evening and isn't normally a problem at all except that this evening I had wanted to write some Social Stories with The Eldest, so had to drag them all back in wailing and then spend time redressing them (The Boy claimed to not be able to get himself dressed at all and to only be able to lie weakly on the floor whimpering and The Feral One had secreted her clothes somewhere requiring us to play "hunt the knickers") and by the time we sat down at the table for the Social Stories, none of us really felt like doing them.

The Feral One has also decided that she needs to strip off to dress up as a "Fair-ee" or "pie-rat".  On Wednesday night I put the dressing up clothes onto a hanging rail to stop the children dragging them all out of the toy box every time they wanted to find something for the dolls.  Come Thursday morning I was peacefully (for once) eating my breakfast and I heard the words "Ooo, all the dressing up stuff is out" (uttered by The Eldest) and I was not fast enough off the mark to prevent mass nakedness and the need to redress them all before school.  Whilst there is something immeasurably cute about a toddler wearing nothing except a tutu and a pair of fairy wings, mornings are busy enough normally without a second set of wrestling them into clothes.

On the other hand, however inconvenient and frustrating I may find it when they chose to strip off when I need them to remain dressed, how lovely it is to be so carefree and unconstrained about yourself that stripping off is so natural.  I know that there will come a time when they become self conscious about themselves and that this will undoubtedly come as they grow up, so for now, long live childhood and the joy of running round clothed only in the air.