So, one day last week while I was getting the kids ready for
school, my daughter Lily turned to me and said, “You know, I could help you out
with dresses and stuff in the morning if you want”. How sweet, how very sweet of my darling girl. She thinks I need help, and she’s right. (I did look like a crazy person)
…but wait, to defend myself for just one moment, I should mention
that I work from home 3 days a week, and this happened on a “work from home”
day, so it’s not like my choice of attire was of any great importance, as I was
spending the entire day all alone at my computer. Also,
my husband travels for work…a lot. He is
presently in India, on day 15 of an 18 day trip. I have been particularly busy at work with
two huge projects over-lapping, my son decided to time the arrival of the
“terrible 2’s” basically with the exact departure time of his father’s flight
to India, my house looks like a team of tazmanian devils ran through it, and my daughter, while oh-so-sweet with her
offer to help, lands somewhere on the border between the age of 4 and the age
of 15, reminding me daily that “nothing in this house is fun or fair!” So, on the fashion front…I think I’ll give
myself a pass. I just figured that Lily's offer to help comes from the fact that she is a fancy princess who loves
dressing up, so she just thinks it would be fun if I were more like her, and I
leave it at that.
....until I got to my son's daycare.
....until I got to my son's daycare.
His school is having a scarecrow
contest. Every classroom works on a
scarecrow, and then displays them around the school. There is one near the entrance, and as we
walked past it that same morning, JD said, “that looks like Mommy!” And that
was when I realized that the kind and loving offer from my daughter earlier
that morning was not because she wants me to be a fancy princess like her, it’s
because I look like a scarecrow and I’m embarrassing my children. Oh good Lord.
So, I thought about it….let's see...I definitely brushed my teeth that morning, so I
know that at one point I was in front of a mirror, but I couldn’t in all
honesty say whether or not I actually looked at myself in it, I just didn’t
remember. When on earth did this happen??? I mean, I’ve never really been one to put in
a tremendous amount of time on hair and make-up (with the exception of the 6th
– 9th grade – I used more hair products and make up during those
years than in all following years combined) – but, I did more or less make an
attempt to look presentable more often than not. When exactly did that stop??
I recently updated my profile picture on facebook, it was a
picture of myself from an awards dinner I attended with my husband, so I was
dressed up and made-up and my hair was not up in a messy ponytail as
usual. It was a nice enough picture I
suppose, but so many people told me they liked it that I stated to think maybe
it was a joke. (Sidebar: This stems directly from teenage years of
super low self-esteem coupled with a steady diet of too many 1980’s teen-angst
movies. ie: if the cute boy asks you
out, it is most likely so that he and his friends can make fun of you later or its all part of a "date a nerd" contest or something) BUT
then I realized….this was all because of my new scarecrow persona. It
wasn’t really that great of a picture of me, but it WAS a great picture of the
scarecrow that I’ve become! – something must be done! I look so awful most of the time that one night of hair and make-up actually IS a really big deal! So, here it is: I vow to stop embarrassing my children in
public (with my appearance anyway, my personality is still their problem to deal
with) – I hereby promise to pay a little more attention to my appearance on
a daily basis…although I do have to say that JD pointing out that I look like a scarecrow, if nothing
else, means that for ONCE my outfit is in season!
Yes! I’ll take it!
Yes! I’ll take it!
