When my oldest children were in preschool, there was a little girl, and she would always come to school in clothes that didn’t match …sometimes even two different shoes. It was something that I couldn’t fathom. How could anyone let their beautiful baby girl leave the house looking like that? But this little girl was proud, and perfectly happy, and she had dressed herself.
Fast forward a few years… it is 5 degrees outside and we have all gotten up late and my beautiful strong willed daughter wants to wear her new Valentine’s Day outfit to school which includes a tulle skirt, a short sleeve t-shirt and thick winter tights …with gold ballet flats. Yes… did I mention the newly fallen snow on the ground? What could really go wrong if she wore inappropriate footwear to school one day? “This is it, one time, you are too little to be dressing yourself for school!”
My youngest child, you see, had me up all night with this croupy nasty cough she was barely conscious, this morning,and my mommy senses say she should be in the ER but instead we are going to our regularly scheduled doctors appointment. I am sure we look extra special this morning as we stand, freezing, at the bus stop. I have 1 child dressed for summer, 1 child dressed for a blizzard and one child dressed for bed wrapped in a fleece blanket. What I didn’t realize was with in the next 2 hours we would lose every thing we owned; except what we were wearing. Yes that meant the only shoes my daughter owned were gold glittery ballet flats. Is that really the end of the world?
While our inappropriate shoe days are behind us it has taught us many things. It’s OK to live in the moment. It’s OK to wing it: I use to let the little things stress me out. Its also important to be prepared. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, you can be spontaneous and fun while still being safe. You can go to the zoo when there is chance of rain but maybe you should take a jacket. You can let your daughter pick out her clothes but make sure they are seasonally appropriate because it would have been way more convenient to have snow boots in February than ballet flats. Or, you know, even gym shoes.
