A note came home from daycare yesterday.
"Tomorrow will be mix and match day."
My girls said, "Yay! We want to play!"
They wore the craziest outfits to daycare today.
My big girl wore a halter dress
Backless, with diagonal stripes
Under which she stuffed a bright red shirt
The way my grandmother stuffed her sleeves with slightly used wipes.
The red shirt was covered in white apples and stars.
The dress: its stripes were of thick and thin bars.
The socks: one brown, and one pink and white,
Because, she said, we need a dark and a light.
(And then, of course, because this is my E,
She wore two different Crocs, from among her pairs three.
The left, solid purple, with no holes to be found,
The right, a lavender, poked through all around.)
My little girl wore shorts and a tank
In two different colorways that clashed mightily
The top, blues and greens, soft to behold
The shorts, orange and yellow that you can't help but see.
Her socks, further clashing,
Were even two different heights.
A purple flowered anklet adorned the left
And on the right, tall pink hid mosquito bites.
She insisted on sandals,
The ones that don't fit
Over socks. I suggested others
But she wouldn't submit.
So in went my girls
To the school they adore
Dressed like cute homeless clowns
To the usual calls ("Have fun! Listen!")
I always implore.
And home we returned
At the end of the day
And they sat on the couch
To strip down for some play.
And here's where I lament
The day's fun dressing game:
It's doubled the number
Of sock pairs they have stained.
I try so hard in the summer
To keep socks off their feet.
It's my joy for this season:
Less sock matching is sweet.
Because my epic battle is
To conquer the laundry pile.
But the socks seeking mates are so plentiful
They could stretch across a mile.
I face my enemies
I match and I toil
On this modern mama's battlefield:
Rainbow-colored cotton soil.
June 9, 2009Still life with instruments of war
