We’ve been having a clothing crisis this summer. I have plenty of nice clothes and new shoes for my 3-year-old son, Tyler, and they are all placed neatly, and unworn, in his closet. Tyler’s daily uniform consists of a Spiderman shirt on top and Superman shorts on the bottom or vice versa. On his feet are size 7 Spiderman sandals from last year, even though he wears an 8-1/2. He looks like a deranged street urchin from a Dickens novel. On days when I can convince him to wear a normal shirt, the minute he hits the door he’s back in his superhero gear, stains and all. I’ve tried to find more shirts and sandals with these namesakes to no avail. Most of the Superman stuff I can find is for older kids and the clothes for younger kids are mostly pajamas. So, basically, my kid is wearing some variation of pajama top and bottom to school each day and, frankly, I’ve given up trying to convince him otherwise. He wore the same shirt two days in a row to his daycare and when I told him he’d stink, he didn’t care about that either.

If only I could be so low-maintenance in the clothing department.

Since I’ve more or less given up that battle, I’m using it to my advantage. You see “Superman” and “Spiderman” are very hard to say, so in the ongoing fight to get dressed each morning we have a bit of homegrown speech therapy right there in Tyler’s bedroom. Funny thing is, the more I understand Tyler, the more I’m not sure I want to. I’m quickly learning that all this time he’s been getting his jollies telling me what to do.

The other morning I was trying to get him to say “Superman.”

“Too hard, mama,” he said.

“Tyler, it’s not too hard; you can do it. Besides, anything worth doing in this world is hard,” I said, laughing at myself because I sounded so mom-ish. “And that’s my lecture for today.”

“No leshure, mama!” What? He can’t be telling me not to lecture him already.

Later that night, after I put him to bed, he got up and shut his door and proceeded to turn on the light and play. He’s been doing that lately, and eventually he crawls in bed, and I turn out his light when I go up. Lately I’ve been trying to break the habit because he’s oversleeping and cranky to boot. I go up and open the door to his room, busting up his little party.

“Mama go ’way. Go eat!’

Eat? “I already ate. You need to get into bed, Tyler. It’s night-night time,” I say in my I-mean-business voice. “Go watch TV, Mama! Go! Get out!”

By this point my husband Jerry is laughing, probably wishing he could tell me those things too.

And so it continues in this fashion with Tyler telling me off and me trying not to get mad or laugh. I know I’ll have to get serious about nipping this in the bud pretty soon, but for now it’s kind of neat just to be able to understand what he’s saying. After a lot of back and forth, our night ends in a pleasant exchange.

“Goodnight, Tyler. I love you.”