what not to wear

at the beginning of this year, my schedule at work changed. instead of my hours being 10a-3p, they were switched to 9a-3p, m-f. i am grateful every day to a) love my job and b) still have a job, so i didn't mind the change. but f? she is rebelling against our now more-chaotic mornings in a way that makes sense to me but still totally sucks: by making getting dressed an all-out freakout, pretty much every morning. wheeee!

before my shift changed, we'd wake up & i'd throw on gym clothes + stuff some work clothes into my gym bag, and that'd be about the extent of my morning routine. i'd drop f off at school, go to the gym & workout, then shower & get ready there & be at work by 10am. now that i don't have time to go to the gym in the morning, i go as soon as i get off the air, so i have to be dressed for work every morning before we leave the house together. and while i am not one to primp too terribly much, i still want to feel good about my appearance, so i wash my face, put on a little makeup, do my hair, etc. getting dressed is taking me longer than it did when i just had to grab clothes to throw into my gym bag. maybe because i have more time to actually look in the mirror and not just wing it? i don't know, but i've been fretting about what to wear a little bit more (which takes up more time, dangit) now that i have to be ready for work before we leave the house.

and there the problem begins. taking a little more time in the morning in our room to get ready (and stressing out a little more, i will totally admit it) i think has f reacting in a way that makes our mornings these little recurring nightmares. all of the sudden, she is changing her outfit 5 times each morning, and/or wanting to wear a tank top when it's 45 degrees outside (no joke! san diego! WTF?) and/or refusing to get dressed AT ALL as she's telling me over and over that SHE HATES ALL HER CLOTHES. combined with her waking up around 6:45am (super late for her) for the first few mornings of the year AND having a raging ear infection for about a week, and mornings in our house have been making us both want to cry. sometimes we do.

sometimes things have to get bad before i wake up and realize i can make changes, so i have: i'm figuring out my work outfits the night before (even if only in my head), packing my gym bag and as much lunch stuff as i can the night before, and making a concerted effort to spend more calm time with her in the morning doing whatever she wants, even if it's only 5 more minutes.

on her end, her ear infection is cleared up and she's waking up earlier again. she now has to choose her outfit the night before and we stick with it the next morning, no matter how much she tries to get us to let her change her mind. last weekend we went through her clothes and made a big pile of stuff she just wasn't wearing, so we're going to hand that down to her pal m. finally, her birthday is soon so instead of toys or books or whatever, her gift from us will be a trip to old navy to pick out some new clothes (she has already eagerly agreed to this). the last two dresses i picked out for her she wore once each and refused to touch them again (i was pretty frustrated - do we look like we're made of money? on a related note, do we sound exactly like our parents did? we totally do). i know she is a girl of strong opinions. and she now wants to choose her own clothes from the store, so we're going to let her, within our guidelines. no hoochie wear! but my hope is that if she picks out her clothes, she'll be more inclined to actually wear them. so far, the few things she's chosen at target or wherever, she has actually worn more than once. funny how that works.

today it all started to come together. i still had to lay down the law about her not getting to change outfits this morning from the one she chose last night and that wasn't pretty for a few minutes, but once we got past that, it was a much more calm morning. far more peaceful than the past few. and really, it's one day at a time, right? or, one outfit that consists of a black and white striped dress with a hot pink belt, purple flowered leggings, and silver shoes at a time, are you with me?