The Frankie wears many hats

... literally.

Frank and I love playing dress-up with his mini-me, and we went a little overboard in purchasing hats for the fall and winter. It helps that Old Navy has the greatest selection of baby hats imaginable, and that Frank's younger brother works there and lets us know about all their great deals.

First we have what Frank calls the "little Gilbert" duffer cap (our family is a bit Anne of Green Gables-obsessed):

Frankie wears this hat to church (but not IN church) and for sunny walks around the neighborhood.

My favorite memory with this hat (so far) is the time Frankie and I were walking with some friends through Bridgeport and we spotted an elderly gentleman sitting on his front stoop... wearing the exact same duffer cap as my baby. It was awesome. When he saw Frankie, the grin on that old man's face was a mile wide.

Next we have Frankie's "trapper hat" aka "bear cub hat." I like to call it his Davy Crockett hat, but Frank insists that doesn't work since it's not a coonskin cap. Whatever, he totally looks like a snuggly little mountain man to me. When he wears this hat, I like to sing the Davy Crockett song with Frankie's name subbed in: "Frankie, Frankie Barber! King of the wild frontier!" (you know the one?)

My favorite memory with this hat (so far) is the time Frankie wore it when we went on a tour of Lakefront Brewery in Milwaukee. All of these tipsy frat boys were coming up to us yelling, "Dude! Awesome hat!!" It cracked me up. I also loved when the tour guide asked, "Is this baby's first brewery tour??" and Frank and I responded, "No... it's his second." We were a little proud of ourselves, not gonna lie.

And last but not least, we have Frankie's pumpkin hat. 

This one is his newest—Frank just bought it for him when we were in NJ over the weekend—but it already has sentimental value for a couple of reasons.

When Frankie was a tiny infant, about six weeks old, the very first time Frank made him laugh was by calling him "pumpkin." It was the cutest thing—Frank would give him this big grin and say, "Heyyy pumpkin!" and tiny Frankie would giggle and giggle. To this day, "pumpkin" is Frank's special nickname for him that always makes him laugh, so of course when Frank saw this pumpkin hat he had to buy it.

Also, back when Frank and I were engaged and living in Virginia, every Sunday at church we used to do "baby spotting" of the little ones sitting near us. We would always point out the cutest babies to each other and daydream about having a baby of our own someday. In particular, we always noticed this one baby boy who we dubbed "the pumpkin." His mother always wore him in a sling so that just his little head was visible, and since he had very chubby cheeks and bright orange hair, he did in fact look just like a little pumpkin. It's fun to remember those days now that we have a chubby-cheeked "pumpkin" of our own.

p.s. Happy feast of St. Teresa of Avila—my patron saint—today!