Perhaps I am a bit too anal.

If you have a kid in Catholic school right now you know that this is National Catholic Schools Week. I don't know about anywhere else, but here at our school that means fun and games, no homework all week, and a relaxation of the dress code.

Call me crazy if you want, but I like the uniforms that the kids have to wear. It's so much easier in the morning to get out the door when you don't have the quandary of what to wear. I don't have to supervise the assemblage of outfits, and there is no need for me to veto clothing selection. Spawn puts on the khakis and the polo shirt and off we go.

However, this week the school is having special dress days. Today is Mix-up Day. Which means that whatever the kids wear, it's not supposed to match.

Yikes.

I helped Spawn pick out an "outfit" last night, and it was painful to me. I am a matchy-matchy type of person, Mrs. Coordinate Your Colors, that's me. I find it difficult to mis-match stuff on purpose, green-and-purple stripes with red plaids and yellow polka dots and what-all. These people who can put on the first thing they grab out of the closet in the morning, well, I just don't understand them. I get the hives. More than once last night I caught myself trying to coordinate Spawn's outfit rather than purposely making it mismatched, and finally I just had to give up and let the kid do it without my help. A six year old can really get into the spirit of such things.

Back in the day I could have gotten into mismatching clothes on purpose, and I could have dreamed up some pretty wild combinations. I used to love it when we had special dress days at school. But over the years I've become so used to "dressing for success" that that part of my brain has atrophied and creative dressing is far beyond my grasp anymore. I suppose what this means is that I have crossed a threshold and am now firmly on the path to old-ladydom.

It was a little harder than I thought it would be to put together a mismatched outfit, because upon close inspection, Spawn doesn't have too much that isn't coordinate-able. I looked long and hard and discovered that most of Spawn's clothes are without patterns, mostly solid colors and mostly colors within the same color family. I also discovered that I have entered into a phase in my life whereby all fabric in my house is solid colored and/or subtly patterned.

Translation: I am dull.

But still, Spawn got the job done, where old Mom just couldn't bring herself to do it. So this morning we walked into school, me with my perfectly coordinated business attire, right down to my socks, and Spawn, who was wearing an orange shirt, fuchsia and blue embroidered jeans, a pink belt, one lavender sock, one red sock, two different shoes, a purple lei, and a hot pink straw hat. God, it's great to be Six, because at Six in an outfit like that you can't help but look adorable.

I love the fact that having Spawn in my life means that I have to stretch my brain every once in a while.




-- Mox