Wear Does The Time Go?

Declan starts Kindergarten in two weeks. I vaguely remember the picture of me on my first day - I was so tiny...and wearing hideous brown seventies clothes with red shoes and I think yellow socks. No, Mom, I won't ever let you live the fashion choices down...unless you cop to doing drugs, because there simply cannot be any other viable excuse. I was forever ridiculed in grade school for the way I looked. It took me until high school to finally shake the stigma, and it helped I was able to finally buy my own clothes. But the memory of the insecurity based on appearance in school has always stayed with me. So today, I was shopping for 1st Day of School clothes....this, after taking him for a haircut and breathing down the stylists' neck so she would not do anything to screw up the perfected coiffed head I envisioned. It's ironic and odd tho, that I am more obsessed with dressing my son in the most non-potentially nerdifiying clothes as possible while I roam the aisles with no makeup and my hair wound in a blue scunchie, wearing a Playboy Club Las Vegas pink t-shirt and grey flannel sweatpants that are too big for me. Perhaps I've already conceded that I'm a lost cause in any case that doesn't require formal attire, or maybe it's just that I don't expect to see anyone at Target at 8:30am on a Sunday morning. Either way, I am obsessed with my son's wardrobe choices. While I want him to develop his own sense of style....or, in all honestly, develop his own sense of CLASSIC style....no saggy ass pants crotches, no "Kill, Hate, Death" tee-shirts, and most importantly....the desire to shower regularly. It slightly horrifies me that he loves to pull his socks up to his knees - I love Erckle to death, but I don't want to be his mom. I am (not so) embarrassed to admit I actually by him ankle socks now so he physically can't pull them that high. I know, he's five. But I also know I'm going to blink, and he'll be taller than I am and asking for the car keys. Perhaps I am convinced that as long as he's dressed the part, he'll have a better chance of living it....

Ah, the manipulations of a parent. Likely futile, but never ending......