In dressing Lil’ Red, I noticed I had put him in a stripped top and striped stockings.  I lifted up his top, and you bet ya, I had put him in a striped bodysuit too.  Oddly enough, the stripes were all the same thickness – the stripes were all horizontal.

The stripe isn’t something I normally go for.  It has this stigma about it, that you still live in the 80s, or even worse, the 70s!  Growing up in Australia, stripes were kind of a no-no.  I guess it was because everyone knew that horizontal stripes made you look wider.  I never wore stripes in Oz.

However, it seems that Norwegians can’t get enough of stripes – horizontal ones!  In baby clothes, the two biggest styles are plain or stripes.  I try to stick to the rules of wearing stripes when dressing Lil’ Red – the socially accepted ‘only one stripey thing per outfit’ – but there are days when I see nothing but stripes left in his draw.

Babies aren’t just the only ones effected by this 80s flashback.  My dance kids have the alignment too.  When I gather them in a circle to start the class, all the stripey shirts, stockings and socks scream out at me.  The other plain clothes fade into the back ground.  Sometimes I get a couple of kids wearing the same stripes (a common phenomenon when living in a small town with only a handful of clothing stores).  The kids are very amused when I point out all their stripes but I just can’t help myself – they are everywhere!  When I say to them ‘you look very 80′s today’ they say ‘huh?’.

Men are sucked in too.  Come to think of it, Moose has several stripey T-shirts and I think he has even worn one to work today.  But men also get a little variety – vertical stripes and diagonal stripes – whoo hoo!  (For dress shirts and ties, of course.)

Our whole family has been effected by the stripy gods.  Just a quick look in one of our our beanie, gloves and scarf draws would make any ‘stripe-a-phobic’ run for the hills.