Home >> a mommy uniform
January 15, 2009
A few Sunday’s ago, I stood at my closet and couldn’t find anything to wear…yup, there were lots of options, just nothing churchie. So, I pulled out my mommy uniform and away we went: cargo pants and a hoodie. In my efforts to edit my personal belongings down to the essentials, I’ve bagged almost half of my wardrobe and delivered it to the thrift store. Afterall, if the top of the hanger is dusty, why keep it? All of this got me to thinking about clothes and how they make me feel. Ever since Miika was born, my clothes purchases have had certain requirements: #1 rule: comfort, #2 does not require a lot of ironing, #3 in my palette… A few Easters ago I tried to get a nice springy outfit, thought I’d veer from my rule book a bit and bought a ruffley pink thing. I’m just about to put in the next bag because I’ve only worn it 3 times in 4 years. It just isn’t a good investment to buy things outside the uniform code! So what if I have 20 hoodies, that’s what I like! I tend to dress like a toad most days…shades of green, brown, and black. Paul always tells me that I need some color…my color outside of the toad palette is RED. So today it’s a red hoodie and black Majama pants. Majama’s are the greatest wardrobe invention EVER! I discovered them when I was pregnant with Miika. The pants in particular are amazing because they fit a pregnant belly all the way to the end w/out the ugly maternity pouch. Then miracle of miracles, they fit afterward as the belly goes away, AND they fit when the belly is all gone. They don’t wrinkle or get pilly. And I’ve washed them 1,000 times and they look like new. And my last secret is that I wear them as PJs and I’ve worn them out to dinner and to church…thus the name: Majamas. Pants for the mommy who has to jump out of bed and take the kids to school and doesn’t have time to really get dressed. I’ve learned to take a lot of wardrobe shortcuts in an effort to save time. I have a lot to do every day and corners of time must be cut in order to win the race. Often…especially in the winter, my PJs are under my clothes. So at night, I just peel a layer off and go to bed. A mom’s gotta do, what a mom’s gotta do! I’m sure if the fashion police caught me in the grocery store, they’d drag me in for questioning. Occasionally I stumble upon one of Oprah’s makeover shows and am amazed at the transformations. But that all takes time and effort. I always feel like screaming to them, don’t you know that I’m busy!! More importantly so much of what people fuss about just doesn’t matter. Anyway, I’m sticking to my uniform. It’s me. I’m comfortable and I like it!
One more thing…
On Monday Nathan and I stopped at my favorite store, Unique, and I found this wonderful book for 53 cents: White Hot, by Tricia Guild. It’s a masterpiece of graphic design with the use of lots of vellum pages which makes one image overlap another like a collage. The book is a study in interior color. It’s about 10 years old, but fabulous nonetheless. It gave me a mommy moment to escape to…that and a cup of free Roobis Vanilla tea from Starbucks thanks to Paul who found 2 freebie coupons in the Tribune which I’ve enjoyed completely! Cheap thrills!