Dear Neighbors...

To my lovely Neighbors...

It's true.  My lawn in the back of the house is calf-high, littered with weeds you've never even heard of, and more brown than green come the middle of August.  There are toys scattered, vines choking the entire length of the chain link fence, threatening the basketball hoop and grill alike, and the garden no longer exists.  And I know, the front lawn though cut a smidge more often than the obscured back, isn't a whole lot prettier with it's patches of yellow and basketball sized holes where the woodchucks are burrowing.  In fact, I'm sure right now you're thinking fondly back to its glory days when the previous owners, retired, meticulous and patient as they were, grew lush, ankle high blades of perfection, flowers and neatly trimmed bushes.

I do indeed remember the one time a fallen branch fell onto your (which is to say our but we're happy to let you use it since we've all got black thumbs here) garden.  I do in fact realize it was days before the branch was removed...by you.  

The thing is, neighbors beside, behind, across and to the corner, I've got this little family here...

You might see them sometimes, stomping down those weeds, loving the tickle of that long green grass on their bare knees, kicking that weather worn soccer ball to the other side of the yard before tiring and abandoning it for another unforeseen stretch of time.  Somedays carting out more playthings to enjoy under ceiling of sky and cloud and sun instead of plaster and lathe.  Soaking that vitamin D into their sweet, soft skin.

And you see, I know I could be "productive" at that time.  Maybe whack a weed, trim a tree or maintain the lawn...it's just that...

Well, the lawn doesn't giggle and twirl in her dress and beg me to watch.  The trees provide just the right shade for a perfect picnic on a blanket.  It's so much more fun hunting for that soccer ball in a tangle of brush.  The backyard is their veritable secret garden and my lovely ladies are too busy exploring and asking me to hold their hand for me to be terribly concerned with its upkeep.

It's nature...isn't it ok if I let it grow the way it will, at least just for now lest I miss seeing my babies grow in the perfect way that they will?

I know what you're thinking by this point, dearest neighbors and occasional passersby: that spouse of mine.  I know once in a while you might wonder why the man of the house isn't abreast of its current outdoor physical condition, and if he is, why isn't he acting?  But I'm sure you'll understand the love and desire for time spent together when two people are apart far more than they'd like and how that can overshadow almost everything around them screaming for their attention.  How when he and I at last end up in the house awake and at the same time after a long day at work, tedious hours spent studying, or child rearing, the rest of the world just kind of fades to a dull drone in the background of this amazing moment that is ours and ours alone.  Yardwork?  For the birds.

I'm sorry, then, if you're offended by the eyesore that is our yard.  I sincerely apologize to the previous owners who surely drive past and discuss at length the neglect their former home is subjected to.

But know this....

Within these four stucco walls, we're so very hard at work building our memories...

Discovering each other...

www.jessicakruegerphotography.com

Learning to love deeper every day...

Healing the rough patches and clearing the blemishes that may pop up every now and then...

Enjoying each perfect moment we have on this Earth beside one another...

How can we possibly be left embarrassed by something as silly as the condition of grass when our family is a masterpiece?

178 Pounds

I've spent more time this past week in the grocery store than in the entire past 7 months of little W's life combined.  I'm trying out this new thing, perhaps you've heard of it...cooking.  Honestly, it's been a plethora of Pinterest crockpot meals, but there's plenty of veggies and lean meats to make me feel like I'm doing right by the littles.

So far results are mixed.  W absolutely adores zucchini.  N is all about the corn and peas, sometimes a black bean will make it in there.  A, with her various texture complaints, will eat something as long as it isn't touching, coated, near, under, or itself too mushy, crispy, crunchy, stiff or slimy.  

Naturally, trips to the grocery store around 4pm mean one thing: long lines and long waits.  I don't know about you, but for me the allure is unavoidable...I must look at the  magazines.  No matter how trashy, no matter how shallow, vapid or ridiculous the headlines, I have to read them.  It's like putting me in the same room with a bar of chocolate...I'm going to find it, I'm going to devour it, and I'm going to feel bad about it afterwards.  But one such piece of garbage headline did more than just incite annoyance and an eye-roll.  This.  This right here:

Another little not-so-secret about me: I'm not skinny.  I'm on the plus-side of things, and I've struggled with my weight as well as my body throughout my entire life.  I've felt many things ranging from pride to disgust and back again, since I was old enough to understand that my friend down the street was skinnier than me.

This age.  This little girl toiled over how fat she was.  Daily.

I had a brief period of awesome when A was ages 3-5, then with pregnancies N and W gained and lost and gained again.  However.  This is not about my body image.  This isn't about how I, in particular, feel about the number I see on the scale every morning.  This is about alienating probably more than half of women in America and creating negative feelings within them by thoughtless, insensitive and disgusting commentary on a beautiful, talented, perfectly fine woman.  I mean...*le gasp*...178 pounds?  

Somewhere near 170.  No shame, here.  I felt and looked great.

Best call the fire department to knock down a wall of my house so they can roll my fat butt off the couch and out to a gym, because if 178 pounds is "out of control", then I must be a veritable whale of a woman.  I mean really, do they not understand that kids learn to read around the age of four and five, and these same kids are going to look to those around them (especially media giants) for things to base their ideas of beauty on?

178 pounds, a number my daughter will now quiver in fear of for the rest of her days, lest I can reprogram her from all these nonsensical and shallow standards plastered in grocery stores, on the T.V. and in her favorite clothing stores.

No, sweetie.  Your worth is not based on how smooth your skin looks under that stupid bikini.

178 pounds; an arbitrary number, just as stupid as the BMI concept.  When I was 178 pounds I felt amazing, strong and fit.  178 pounds doesn't have to be twinkies and cheeseburgers, and so what if it is?  178 pounds can also be broccoli and baked chicken breasts with a glass of water, after an hour long workout at the gym that leaves you sweating and sore.  In fact, once I hit 150 pounds (still overweight, according to BMI of course), my smallest, I kept losing pant sizes but never got below that number, save for a certain five days.  You know what happened?  I got so sick I couldn't eat.  It took getting physically ill for me to lose weight beyond 150.  And once I recovered, I bounced right back up, according to the scale, though my clothes never batted an eye, or a button, or whatever.

Overweight.  And fabulous Ithankyouverymuch.

They show a picture of her eating spaghetti; way to go paparazzo, you managed to snap a picture at the perfect time in order to destroy the self-esteem and self-worth of women all over the country.  I hope you feel pretty great about yourselves.  If a plate of spaghetti is out of control, best send me to fat camp because three days ago I made stuffed shells with pork sausage and dripping cheese.  And you know what else?  It was white pasta.  I know.  I'm a beast of a woman, with a voracious appetite for sugary high glycemic carbs.  Out.  Of.  Control.

Quick, someone get this kid on weight watchers!

178 pounds; maybe this is the reason more and more women are experiencing anxiety issues about weight gain during pregnancy, you know, that time in our lives that is supposed to be the most beautiful and cherished?  But instead we're told a number that is unacceptable and we spend our entire lives, pregnancy, a weight gaining norm, included, on limboing under that ridiculous bar.  I remember reading post after post comparing this weight to that, her shape to another's, your pant size to mine.  Disturbing.

Gaining, but I still felt good about myself.  Well, until I was reminded that I was over 178lbs.

I sit there in line staring back at this headline as I can feel it sizing up all the curves of my body and judging me with it's dead, glossy-paged face.  My cart is full of fresh vegetables and fruit, surely I'm not out of control today?  But what about the other end of the spectrum?  Am I letting society get to me to a point where I might be damaging my children?  My N is a brute of a girl, a size bigger than her age, but hardly fat.

www.jessicakruegerphotography.com

She's solid.  She's strong.  She's marvelous.

Am I going to give her the wrong idea if I shovel her plate full of healthy faire?  Or am I truly just being a good mom, as I feel my intentions are aligned with good parenting?  Am I going to create something in my A that should never, never be?  Is she going to read between the lines and assume things that aren't even close to the truth?  I mean, look at her...

178 pounds...it's obvious who the real out of control villain is, in this culture of ours.  I am disgusted.  I am turned off.  I avert my eyes.  I'd rather look at the beautiful, glorious women around me, the moms and the grandmas, the sisters, the aunts, the nieces and the cousins.  Athletic, a little extra, a little less, right in the middle.  The 120's, 110's, the 170's, 200's, and 300's alike.

Garage Sale!

(I am going to skim the surface of what might be an emotionally-charged topic.  Pull up your big girl panties and prepare yourself.)

Ready?  Good.

First off, let me say that throwing one of these solo along with being the only caregiver home for three kids?  Not very good planning on my part.  Ok, with that out of the way...

Such a helper.  So.  Much.  Help.

Something I've learned about garage sales over the past few days is that it is way more fun to find and shop at them than it is to try and advertise and host one.  Seriously.  My six signs around town mustn't have done their job.  I don't get it...we had gorgeous weather (see: everyone is probably on the lake), slight breeze (see: just enough to blow all your stuff off the tables and signs into the street), and it's the last weekend before school starting (see: everyone is probably having quality time with their kids).  Oh, and it's the second weekend of the Great Minnesota Get Together as well as the Rennaisance Festival.  Clever Sam, so clever!

In addition to trying to sell live and in person, I belong to a handful of "Facebook garage sale" groups.  I find it fascinating the varying degree to which people value their old belongings.

I'd take $5 but the clothes are sold separately...

Personally, if there is anything I'm willing to part with, I am probably so excited to get it OUT of my house that I won't think twice about marking it at a "steal" price and rejoice when I see it carried away. Naturally the special clothes for the girls' firsts are hoarded in the basement (first Christmas, etc.) I'm sure the day will come when I am willing to part with them, and I bet when that time comes I'll hold on as tight as I can via overpricing my thrice worn little girl clothes (or four times....).

But the first outfits will live in my basement forever.

I have two totes worth of junk that if anyone is willing to dig through they get the stuff free.  I accidentally (but I can hardly be blamed, he never priced them) sold off the old old Star Wars toys and boxes of comics at probably much less than they were worth.

And of course everyone is well within their right to assign whatever value they please to their junk possessions.  What baffles me is the ones who get downright offended when you won't pay the asked price.  I'm not talking about getting "nickled and dimed".  I'm not talking about getting low-balled.  I'm talking about getting a "thanks but no thanks" response and reacting in a childish, stomp-your-feet kind of way and calling attention to how cheap or what a "scam artist" you believe someone is.

I, personally, don't buy baby and/or kids clothes with the intent of someday cashing in on what I invested in them.  I understand that there are emotions tied to those scraps of cloth that were once coated in spit-up and mashed pears, but to put a price on those emotions seems...silly?  Especially when your potential buyers aren't purchasing sentimental memories of your kids' firsts.  They're out there looking to buy what will become their own "I remember when he wore this..."  or "That day was so perfect...".

You can't put a price on this kind of awesome.

Or it could be just that I was once a poor, single mom and impulsive and impatient about trying to sell things.  There's always that too.

In the end I brought most of my stuff in big black garbage bags to a goodwill and posted the others on a "families in need" group in the hopes I can help another family out there with babies.  My stuff is just stuff.  And the less of it I have, the less weighed down I'll be when it comes time to book out because zombies are tearing down my back door.

Two hundred dollars

As you may have surmised by this point, I'm hardly a wealthy woman monetarily speaking.  Yes, my life is incredibly rich with the love and joy of three amazing young children, a hard working and supportive husband, family and friends aplenty.  But the bank still hasn't accept N's daily declarations of "Awwwww I missssssed yoouuuuuu," for a mortgage payment, nor will my parents' expression of pride ever satisfy the gas company in return for fueling my stove and heating my house.  No, and neither am I pursuing a career in the hopes of ever becoming a woman of affluence; rather, I am chasing down dreams that will further please my soul instead of any material desires.

For the love of people, not a paycheck.

I have periods of time where I question this choice.  Recently, more than ever.

It all started with A.  Actually, the conversation popped up years ago and resurfaces for a gasp of air and a quick sucker punch to my and my husband's parenting egos.  "We should put A in some kind of activity..." one of us mutters, typically while driving to the grocery store with a delicately, tactically written grocery list and a fistful of coupons.  The other parent sighs and agrees that theoretically, it's a wonderful idea.  We move on.  This summer we did manage an acting class, and as most places go, attendance made us eligible for mailings galore regarding future classes.  The mailing in question outlined the fall session.  And what else would they be choosing to preform but Harry-freaking-Potter mashed up with Alice in Wonderland (Johnny Depp and Allen Rickman?  Sign me up for that class, please.)  This catches A's eye quicker than a pink cupcake with glow-in-the-dark glitter.  "Can I? Can I? Can I? CanIcanIcanIcanIcanI?"  The husband and I exchange a few texts and it's generally agreed upon that the one time $200 chunk of money could be worth it, except...

Wait a minute.  I'm having some technical difficulties with contacting my other half...why is my phone flashing some ridiculous message about a missing SIM card?  As if nothing happened, the message fades away and all is back to status quo.  I mutter promises of paypal and internet registration, "getting to it when I can" to satisfy A in the moment.  I'll just wait for a nice, calm afternoon when the dad is home.  Say, Sunday?  Sunday.

Nice and calm...HA!  No such thing in this house.

Except, come Saturday outside the mall, after an episode of entertaining W with the bottom of my phone in her drooling little mouth, the home button on my phone decides to take a nap for an undertermined amount of time.  There's really no telling when he (yes, my phone is a he) will regain function.  Oddly enough, I'm standing outside the Apple store having just had my laptop serviced but I won't even consider turning around and bringing him in for this problem; probably cheaper to just buy a new phone these days, the way Apple has been behaving (that's a different post).  So Saturday we stumble upon a new need: a working communication device.  Due to some interesting new ideas about how to make money on my cell carrier's part, the cheapest I'm looking at is a go-phone I can rig with my SIM.  For $200.  I'm stressed now, and when I'm stressed...

I go for a run.  A nice jaunt around the local walking track since it's free and much too humid for an outdoor run.  My favorite part of this kind of run?  Listening to my Zombies, Run! app and pretending the walkers that litter the inside lanes are the shambling undead, and if I don't create more distance they're sure to close in and devour me.  I mean, seriously, there's plenty of me to enjoy.  It's a nice half hour to forty five minute escape from reality, adrenaline pumping practice for the real deal.  When I'm done I trek my sweaty self back down to the parking lot...but something catches my eye.  Through the giant windows lining the hall I see the gym equipment, skinny chicks on ellipticals and stair steppers.  But I've bet they've never had babies! I reason. (Again, a different post, a different day.)  But, I bet I could get there too if I purchased a REAL membership instead of just free-track-running-time.  So I grab a brochure from the front desk, and plan to commit just as I planned to do so nine other times this very year, to throw some variety into my workouts by attending their many classes and trying new machines and maybe even swimming laps in the pool for joint-friendly water cardio.  Without another glance at the details or specs, I bring home my ticket to being a hot, skinny member of a real gym and hope that the male parent sees it the way I do.  Over the course of the next two miles of driving my excitement builds, all concerns of phones and Potter pushed aside to make room for my big hot-mama-plans.

You can guess how this ended.

"How much is it?" He asks.

"Oh."  I have to shuffle the papers in such a way that I appear to be doing nothing more than making it easier for HIM to view the numbers.  Because of course I looked at prices before I got my hopes up...

"For the single one-year long membership..." (more shuffling) "$200."

No response.  And that's how it started, the turning over and over of my priorities.  The realization that it was this $200, or rather the allocation of this $200, that would define me as a person, as a parent.  My choice here, and yes he left it up to my discretion, would both make and break my fragile mommy ego since no matter which route I took, the effects of letting go the other two would haunt me just as most other decisions seemed to do throughout my 27 years of living.

An example of a decision I DON'T regret

I could enroll A in the Alice Potter acting classes.  Drive forty miles to the cities each Saturday, every other being on top of an overnight shift at work.  Ultimately, culmination is a thirty minute presentation to showcase vast imagination of our youngsters for which I'd need to hire a sitter to occupy the younger two lest they ruin the ambience by screeching and shouting for A's attention which, being seven and hardly a trained professional despite two months and copious amounts of cash worth of classes, she would grant them in between frantic glances to her father and I just to be certain we were aware of her presence on stage.  (If you can't tell, we've done this before.)  And all of this during the school year so I would be adding to my time away from her.

However, I can see those big eyes of hers welling up with waterfalls of salty sadness, wordlessly ripping my heart from my chest; how dare I keep her from her true home in the spotlight?  As Hermione, no less?  Deprived, secluded, shut-in child I'm creating through years of systematically, strategically planning to be just short enough on cash that yet again she's forced to "sit this one out".  How will she ever get into television if I keep sabotaging her efforts?  If I drop the ball (or the Golden Snitch, as it were) again... this $200 has the power to salvage or ruin my title as "awesome mom".

The phone.  Eventually it'll take a permanent crap and be useless to me, hopefully later rather than sooner.  But the longer I delay, the riskier it gets.  What if I'm in trouble and in that desperate moment murphy's law strikes and I'm left stranded in a bad situation?  What if the zombies are closing in and I can't call my husband to tell him one last I love you, because my phone has decided that baby drool is electronic cyanide?  If I don't get a new one, I'm throwing caution to the wind and surely we'll all end up dead due to an inability to contact emergency services.  I'll lose my title as "safe, responsible mom".

But then what about me?  Isn't a happy mom a better mom?  Endorphins make me happy, as would squeezing into my very best zombie survival gear.  Can't squeeze without shedding the W poundage that still plagues me (and the N poundage as well, if we're being honest here.)  Typically, too, I'm good for the contract.  I pay, I go.  But I'll be taking more time away from my family for the "selfish" pursuit of a better body, though of course a healthy mama is a present-for-years mama.  It all feels too egocentric of me though, to drop $200 on something that in the now only benefits me.  I've never been very good at the "bigger picture".  If I pass am I forever forgoing the title of "hot mom"?

"It's ok Sam, SHE'S never had ba-- oh, wait..."

This money, this thing I always swear I can't let step in the way of making a happy life for my babies, is leaving me paralyzed.  In the moment, in the face of this decision, I am impotent and spastic simultaneously.  "It's your choice," he says and I mentally curse him with the responsibility he is strapping to my shoulders.  I understand he's merely making an attempt to hand me a bit of financial power.  And then I dwell and ruminate on every decision that has led me to this point, each time I insisted that money doesn't mean happiness and chose instead to follow my dreams and improbabilities.  Had I been selling my family short the whole time?  Literally?

And now $200 was going to stand between me and the various moms I so badly wanted to be.  

Don't get me wrong.  I figure if I can't buy the kind of life I want my kids to have, I can make due with what we DO have around us.  I can create for them a world of love and comfort and silly fun and security, without needing tons of money to do so.  Just because we can't afford acting classes doesn't mean she won't put on her very best Cinderella dress and act out an entire's day worth of a princesses's life.  Just because we can't put N into skating lessons doesn't mean I'm not going to go out onto that ice with her and fall again and again just to teach her myself how to keep getting back up.  I may not be able to afford the nicest clothes for little W but in the dead of summer we don't need much for clothes anyway (I have clothes for my baby, I'm talking NICE-go-out-in-public-and-look-all-Gymboree-model clothes).

But come on, who needs clothes with a tush like that?

In closing, I'd tell you which way we went in the end, but instead I'll show you how the powers that be made the decision for me:

And curtains!

Working mom/sick kids

I guess I'm "lucky", most people would say...working the night shift means I'm always home during the day when the male parental unit is at work, and he's home 99.9% of the nights when I need to work.  I manage to get plenty of sleep, somehow, and he gets to sleep through the night, barring maybe one bottle in the early morning for W.  It's "perfect" (minus the parenting solo bit).  Especially when a kid gets sick...because with three of them, one a walking petri dish who rounds up the interesting infectious material from school and carries it home, someone always has something.

We still aren't 100% sure what this one was.  We have our suspicions.

When I started my current job, I thought working opposite shifts meant virtually no need to call out with a sick kid.  Sick call, schmick call, the husband can rock a pukey baby just as easily as I can...right?

24-hour stomach virus afflicted 24 month old baby.  What fun!

So the first few months go by, no issue.  Come early January I'm 38 weeks pregnant and finally have to throw in the towel, maternity leave begins.  I was proud to say my short time at my hospital had been untarnished by an absence, nor, I swore, would it be.  Apparently I'm a special kind of stupid.  I'd forgotten the chain of infection and the flat-out disregard a two year old has for keeping her/his germs to her/hisself.  The first major nasty: influenza, one week post-partum.  Four weeks post-partum brought vomiting.  8 weeks, and the morning before my return to work, pink eye.  It was at this point (calling in on what should've been my triumphant return) that I started to suspect that opposite shifts means absolutely nothing.

Pink eye!

Since then there's been two such occasions where a child has been sick and gotten me sick, one where mom got sick AT work and had to leave after barfing in a garbage can, and one (including a three day hospital stay) that a child was sick and needed BOTH mom and dad (she was considerate enough to schedule that over my three day weekend.)  Naturally, this has caught the attention of my higher-ups, and for good reason I suppose.

The hospital cribs look like a tiny baby prison.  But she slept like a dream.

I used to be one of the people they're trying to weed out, the one who just doesn't feel like exerting effort that particular day and so she calls out "sick" and then proceeds to go shopping, go to the beach, have some fun.  Granted, I was 16 and it was a summer job, but I digress...  I can't blame them for questioning four (and a half) absences in a four month period.  However, it throws into question for me: should working parents be treated differently?

Not an illness.  "By the way, your daughter is allergic to most antibiotics!"

As a single childless person, I was only responsible for me.  Now, I'm responsible for three little germ factories who love to share.  Is it fair to expect a parent to be out sick much more often?  As an overnight worker my impulse is to say no, not to expect me to be gone, especially as there is a father around to care for the afflicted child.  I should be held to the same standard as every other employee.

But I AM a mom.  I AM concerned with my children and I DO come into closer contact with them than I should when they're ill and I DO catch their germs.  Not to mention, I work in healthcare; can I, in good conscience, come to work sick?  With something I know the miseries of and I know spreads like wildfire?

Slap-cheeks?  It must be...fifths disease!

Should I extract myself from the workforce until the tots are old enough to understand hand hygiene and attending school with other such health conscious individuals?  Until such a time when I can leave my kids home on their own sick on the random off night when my husband works until midnight but I have to be in at eleven?

What about the single parents?  When I was on my own with A and working at a local gas station there were countless occasions where calling out was necessary.  Today I am deeply sympathetic to such moms/dads, and I expect most people would be.  However, back then there weren't too many kind words from my coworkers or boss.  It was a struggle all around; making sure my sick baby was comforted and loved and tended to, making money and making people happy, and for one grueling semester making sure I made the grades as well.

She made it all worth it.

It's tricky.  Even I flip-flop and have a few double standards.  Sometimes my thoughts and beliefs fall prey to outdated gender roles, I'm feeling guilty for leaving the kids home with their dad when sick and vice versa, beating myself up for being a horrible mother who doesn't stay and cuddle through the night, and then I have to rewind and rethink.  Today's workforce is what it is, I suppose.  The economy is unforgiving, a job is a job which is not something to be taken lightly anymore, but... I'm left to wonder if the kids are the ones who pay the price?

You're wearing THAT??

Summer is nearly over...only two more weeks until that big yellow bus comes and whisks the eldest off to her first day of second grade!  She's much less than thrilled-- moping around, "I'll miss summer!", "I like sleeping in!", causing me to twitch just imaging what she'll be like at thirteen.  

How she feels about the time ticking away is quite clear.  How I feel...  Well, there are two impulses.

A) My sibling-entertainer baby won't be home with me all day everyday.  I'm going to have to make a concentrated effort to drive home as quickly as I can everyday to make sure I can see her before school, because I'll miss her like crazy.

B) My baby will be getting ready for the day in the mornings without me.  I'm going to have to make a concentrated effort to drive home as quickly as I can every single damn day to make sure I can see her before school just to ensure she isn't dressed like this:

Or her hair isn't looking like this:

The latter weighs heavier upon me than the former.  It makes me cherish my younger two, who are still at that tender age of "I'll wear whatever mom puts in front of me!" because they don't have their own opinions on fashion yet.  Who would've thought dressing a seven-year-old would be so rough?

I remember growing up and feeling so at odds with my parents about clothes.  Then again, I dressed more like this:

Than this:

Baggiest baggy jeans and my heavy metal rock band t-shirts?  Staples!  I chopped my hair super short because I couldn't figure out how to style it.  I was comfortable and happy.  And, I swore, I would never question my daughter's choices of clothing if I ever had a daughter (surprise! x 3!)  Her hair?  Whatever she wanted!  Her early years were spent dabbling in a bit of this:

And a bit of that:

She happily lifted her arms into whichever shirt came from the hanger in my hands even if she delighted more at the princess dresses than at the jeans and flower shirts.

Today, she balks and stomps her feet if I dare request that she not wear a dress for the tenth day in a row.  Her hair must be down around her face and if I try running that comb through those gnarled blonde locks even once more than her pre-determined number of acceptable brushstrokes, there will be hell (and eardrums) to pay.  The dresses aren't my main concern however.  Things like THIS:

No offense meant, it's just not my style.  But it IS every 6-10 year old in America's style....

Are my main concern.  I find myself opening my mouth and my mom or dad coming out, "You're wearing THAT?"  Or, "Uh, that's quite an interesting choice.  How about just for kicks let's change ______."   And it isn't even that she's combining green and red or plaids with stripes.  It's the styles.  It's what kids are wearing these days.

It's what they're selling in the STORES.  I walk by a Gymboree, look in the door at the front displays of Kids' clothing and cringe.  It's cool, it's trendy, it's hip.  And she's an "in" kind of kid, apparently.

Ok, I actually approved of this outfit.

So that's where I'll be in approximately two weeks.  Flying down the highway at breakneck speeds to ensure that my child is not going to school looking like "she's going to work with those shoulder pads!" (her words, not mine) but too poor to own a hairbrush or a washcloth to wipe the breakfast off of her face.

And thanking God I can still dress the babies like THIS: