Dear Kid,

I needed Garanimals to get dressed yesterday.

Do you know what Garanimals are (or were)? Garanimals were line of clothing with an animal on the label. The tiger pants went with any tiger shirt, giraffe shirts went with giraffe bottoms, and so on. The point was that even little kids could get dressed by themselves and end up matching. A side benefit was that dads could get even littler kids dressed in a way that moms who cared about coordinated children would approve of.

I really could have used Garanimals yesterday. Nothing I put on worked.

Was it that I hadn’t had enough coffee? Or that the elves had taken all my good clothes and replaced them with bad clothes? I don’t know. But it wasn’t pretty.

The pants I tried didn’t go with the top I tried. I added shoes hoping it would pull the outfit together. The outfit remained un-pulled. I tried a different top. Horrible.

I started looking for the animals on the labels. Nothing.

I thought about wearing a dress, but the bruise I got from the spin bike made that seem like a bad idea.

The thing about mornings (as I’ve mentioned before) is that time doesn’t slow down to accommodate the sartorially challenged.

I ended up getting to work (mostly) on time with all the appropriate bits covered. A colleague was kind enough to say I looked good in what I’d managed to put together. Small children didn’t flee in horror or point in ridicule so I must have not been too ridiculous.

But Garanimals would have been better.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

As I believe I have mentioned once or twice, it’s all a matter of perspective.

For example, some people (you) might think it is fun to go out in the freezing cold and kick a ball through the uprights while many (11) large, muscular, bulked up type people try to prevent said kick. Some people (you) might think it is fun to stand on ice, balanced on razor thin blades, waiting to prevent a puck moving at light speed from getting into a net. Other people (me) might be happy to watch those things (especially if you are involved), but under no circumstances whatsoever would even consider participating.

Some people (me) might think shoe shopping is one of Life’s Pleasures while other people (you) might think shoe shopping is ok if you’re getting a new pair of sneakers but honestly how many high heels can one mom try on? (answer: a lot).

I think, however, that I have found the Ultimate Example of this type of perspective.

Last night I went to a CAbi party. I had never attended one before—allow me to set the scene. Some hors d’oeuvres, some adult beverages, a dozen or so old middle age my age women (many of whom had never met before), and a boat load of clothes. Which were modeled by some of the attendees (the tall, skinny attendees) and discussed by Tammy, while we (all the attendees) studiously marked down the items we were interested in. After the modeling and the demonstrations, we got to try on the clothes.

It was awesome. Women of all shapes and sizes, laughing, throwing clothes everywhere, prancing around in our skivvies, trying on outfits to Figure Out the Right Size. (To be fair, no one really pranced.) I’d say a college age boy would probably not think that was a Grand Old Time, but I had lots of fun. I even bought a top (which will be delivered eventually and about which you will be kind enough to say something like “awesome top, mom”).

But as we were prancing (or not) it occurred to me that this was probably one of those moments aliens (and college boys, because in this case it’s close to the same thing) would never in a zillion years “get.” In fact, I would bet that many a college boy, walking in on such a scene, would mutter something about having to burn his eyes out (after grabbing some food and beverage) and hightail it for the nearest mancave and football game.

It’s all a matter of perspective.

Love, Mom

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