Well, we are in week 2 of Jr’s kindergarten adventure and we have all managed to get where we need to be with all of the crap we need to have, including pants (no small victory,) in a timely fashion every day.
So I guess we are all going to survive the switch, (but reading of any heartfelt ruminations is still on hold until further notice, TYVM.)
I did come to a semi-jarring realization yesterday, not about Jr, but about my own role in this whole daily drop off scenario.
Years ago I made a vow — through gritted teeth with narrowed, shade-throwing eyes — to the baseball-capped, yoga-pants clad, latte-toting super-star suburban mommas piloting their perfectly organized MUVs in and out of the preschool parking lot – and to myself.
I wasn’t going out like that. See, I proclaimed it in my very first post. “Walk among them, don’t become them.” (Thank you Suburgatory, for the best line ever.)
Look, we can pretty much agree that I lost my “cynical Keri” street cred a ways back now… probably around the time I started skipping through the local café giving everybody the winky finger guns and trying to hug an entire town.
Winky Jesus loves you, and so do I, Hometown.
But what I saw yesterday, when I glanced at my reflection in a window of the school while standing on the kindy playground, made me gasp audibly:
Note look of horrified realization.
My.
Damn.
That is legit the ACTUAL textbook image of what I had described as being “them” just a few years ago. AND I QUOTE, “… yoga pants and performance fleece and pony-tails sticking out of baseball caps; with perfectly lined eyes…”
(Well, I suck at eye make up so that part is NEVER going to be me, but still… I mean, come on.)
Whoa.
WHHHOOOAAAAAA.
Holy athleisure wear, Batman. I was the creature I feared all along.
Even more fascinating – I totally get it now. Momming of school-aged kiddos is intense, yo. Jr’s start time is a full hour earlier than I used to drop him off at his previous daycare/school. Two minutes late? Too bad. Your kid is tardy, thanks a lot, Mrs NOT Mother of the Year. That early ass roll-out time means that I have kissed my pre-dawn TV workouts buh-bye; we are already in full-on morning prep mode at that time of day now. AND GUESS WHAT – if I put on the clothes when I get up, then I actually get a workout in right after I bid Jr adieu in the kindy yard and low-speed it out of the school zone. If I am wearing something else? Nope, I end up putting off the putting-on of workout wear, and it just never happens.
ANDPLUSALSO – there are ample pockets for my stuff, it is toasty if the morning is cool, and if I notice a smudge of WTF on Jr’s face right as we get a foot on the playground, I don’t have to worry about jacking up work wear using my sleeve as a face wipe. (Yup, I said it.)
It’s like wearing a suit of mom armor. I can’t hide it – I am converted, and I hadn’t even noticed the change.
The truth can hurt, Keri.
But it can also set you free.
:::raising giant Starbucks cup :::
Here’s to being “one of them.”
Reluctantly Suburban 
Wear it proudly!