Looking Cool

I thought I had years until Abby was embarrassed about what she was wearing to school. Nope. It happened yesterday.

She was getting dressed for Pajama Day, which was a huge deal to all of the five-year olds in her class. All week she talked about wearing her purple, cuddly pajamas. She made sure I washed them in time (five days before the anticipated date) and she carefully kept them in her drawer, never to be touched in the off chance that they were to get dirty again.

These special pajamas are like a dress and since it was about 24 degrees outside that morning, I reminded her to wear pants underneath.

Well, that was just about the worst thing that I could have said.

She started crying and saying they would not match. When I pointed out that these stretchy pants did match and actually looked cute as an outfit, she disagreed. She finally yelled out, "I'll just be so embarrassed!"

I tried not to laugh because I remember being at an age where I was horrified at the thought of wearing a winter hat to school or even zipping my jacket. Who cared if I was freezing-I wanted to look cool. A hat would mess up my carefully crimped hair with the bangs that flipped down and up. (You children of the 80s know exactly what I mean.)

(Can I just say that one of my favorite parts of college was the fact that absolutely no one cared what you wore? Everyone bundled up in thick, zipped coats and wore cozy hats on their walk to class and that was cool.)

Anyway, since my daughter suddenly developed a fashion sense at age five, I kept my ground to keep her warm and she finally got dressed for school. When we arrived, she continued on with her grumpy face and even her teacher explaining that it was the right thing to wear pants with her pajamas did not help. Her teacher and I exchanged the knowing look of "ignore her and she will deal it" and within a minute, she was smiling and going through her routine of unpacking her bag and writing her name on the board.

My favorite part to all of this was when I picked her up from school later that morning. Her teacher told me that another girl had to wear pants under her pajamas and she and Abby never left each other's side.

And it begins.