Back away from the Mom Jeans

Mom Jeans - watch more funny videos

I'm a homebody by nature. Well, kinda.  I love to travel, or hop on my bike and go exploring around our neighborhood with the kids but, I don't spend a lot of time in the malls.  I purchased school supplies from the school just so I didn't have to go to staples and join in on all the back to school madness. I would rather take the kids to the playground but I prefer to leave them at home when I go shopping.  By shopping I usually am referring to the grocery store or the fish store but I hardly darken the hallways in the mall. Any mall.  I'm not picky.
School is back and I have ventured out more and more but I never really noticed it until the weather changed and it started to get cooler. My sundresses & flip flops have been traded in for blue jeans and hoodies and that's when came to a startling conclusion.
I dress like a MOM!
Which shouldn't really surprise me?  I am a mom. But,  I look like every other overtired mom pushing a stroller around walmart.  And the more I looked the more of "us"I saw. Its like we are a bunch of zombies... I wish I was kidding.     I'm a card carrying "throw my hair in a ponytail no makeup sweatsuit wearing momma" without really even noticing.  Maybe I did notice but was so busy tending babies I didn't give it much bother? Whatever the case may be I can look back now and shudder. Seriously, I have pictures to prove it....

I'm assuming now that I probably thought I had fashion all figured out way back in junior high when my jeans. Laughable now. I wore my jeans so tight I had to wrestle them on and flop myself onto my bed to zip up the zipper with a fork {remember those?}  I tossed on one of many  heavy metal band shirts and slipped my feet into a pair of kangaroo high-tops then spent the next hour plastering my hair into this:  Attractive eh? Looks like I snagged a frisbee and hair-sprayed my hair to match the curve.  You could bounce quarters off that sucker.  And what's with the bad dye job? Blond. Really? Or the makeup? I had zero experience putting it on so If you look closely you can see that I have a perfect foundation line all around my face. **groan**  Times have changed...I said goodbye to bad makeup and  I don't even listen to heavy metal crap anymore thankfully. High school my dad took a transfer & we moved to the  middle of nowhere. I grew out the boxed blond for a more natural reddish brown.  {the torment I went thru while that grew out was horrific} Maybe that's why I also started hiding my teeny tiny figure in big baggy sweatshirts? I traded in all the makeup for mascara and some lipgloss too. College wasn't much better but at least I traded up for more conservative boy-friend jeans and t-shirts. But I chopped off my hair.... And I transformed my entire t-shirt collection into "fun ones" with words or pictures or both. Like my favorite "green egg and ham" shirt and shorts that could have fit three of me in them.  I don't even remember where I found those shorts.                    
{which is probably a blessing in disguise}

I moved again and grew out my hair...

But the jeans and the sweatshirts stayed until I was blessed with elastic waistband pants and longer shirts. Ah, the joys of maternity clothing!      I'm going to be honest.  I like this picture but I just want to crop off my head.  I will admit I have wore jeans and a hoodie to the ballet. Stop gasping.  There were people there wearing much worse than I was.  But the problem was it didn't phase me.                       I didn't even own a pair of wearable high-heels until my trip to palm springs a few years ago.

You would have laughed at me learning to walk in them.

Now that was comical.  You would think a woman in her 30's would know how to walk in a killer pair of heels?  

I thought so too.  

But I didn't.

My realization that I was a card carrying "throw my hair in a ponytail no makeup sweatsuit wearing momma"has forced me into my closet. 

Nothing is safe.  

Everything stained,old, too big or unflattering is gone.

I even went so far as to recruit the help of my teenage daughter as I went thru "questionable" articles of clothing and weeded out the junk.  I tried on every pair of jeans I own and took a good look at my "assets" in the bathroom mirror. 

I don't have the dreaded mom Jeans now but I hear the whispering my name and it honestly frightens me.recruite  

What that looks like right now....

But I do know that if you catch me out in public wearing a sweatsuit and I am not on my way back from a gym I give you permission to call the "what not to wear" crew.

No more ponytails when I am leaving the house.  

During the day when I am crawling around on the floor chasing a toddler sure, But if I am out and about they better be they are fancy and don't look like I grabbed a hair tie on my way out.

No wearing my crocs, they are strictly for the garden.

{Hmm, I wonder if I still have those?}

And sorry hoodies, I can't wear you every day.

I'm tired of looking like a mommy zombie. 

I want to ditch the sloppy sweatpants and embrace mommyhood with style. 

But I need help....

See, that's me.

Waving that little white flag.

Can you help? 

Or is that you, waving that other little white flag?