Sunday, August 30, 2009

Back to School Shopping

The boys and I went back to school shopping the other day at our favorite clothing store--the Bluefield Boutique. It's always kind of fun to go shopping there, because I never know what I'm going to find, especially since I can't keep it all in my head any more. I'm sure there must be others in the world who shop this way, scooping things up on clearance or used, and storing them until they fit, but when my sister mentioned going back to school shopping for her boys, it just struck me as odd that I don't back to school shop in the traditional way. Am I warping my children forever by denying them the full back to school shopping experience?

Now, of course, we're faced with the problem we have every year--lack of drawer space for pants and shorts, since it's that transition time when we need to have both available. Not to worry, though. We do have another dresser that we're refinishing, that will probably be done just in time for Bubby to move his clothes into it when he moves into his big boy bedroom (oh, right, that won't solve the Code-man and Logo dresser space issue).

I feel so unprepared for school to start this year. I'm sure it's a function of my brain being too full with accumulated stuff that I have no room for a "get ready for school to start" compartment. My efforts at preparation have so far seemed disjointed and disorganized. It's not even that I feel emotionally unready--I just feel like there's something important that I'm missing, that I still need to get or prepare. And then I think, oh well, it's not the end of the world if I really am missing something. It's not like they're going to kick our kids out of school for not having the right color folder on the first day. And that just makes me feel worse, because I'm the mom and I am supposed to be prepared! And really, people, tell me: how hard is it to get ready for school to start? Not very. I know moms who can do it with two hands tied behind their backs (maybe not their own hands...)

Even though I know that I'm far from perfect, can never be perfect, for some reason I still strive for that perfection. This is such a terrific example of how we women always, always have higher expectations for ourselves than anyone else in our lives does: how we set standards for ourselves that are impossible to achieve. And it makes me so mad that I am unable to give myself the grace to rest and say, good enough. Good enough.

Well, at least the kids have pants :-)

"And God saw all that he had made, and it was very good."
Genesis 1:31a

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