Mom Jeans or Mother Knows Best?

A million years ago, I was in high school and fashion challenged.  Also popularity challenged.  Go figure but Key Club, Marching Band--mellophone no less, and Mock Trial team did not exactly send me rocketing to the top of the social echelon.

I've reconnected in the past couple of years on Facebook with some kids from my high school.  And by kids I mean partners in law firms and such.  One gal in particular is fun to read and I remember her being not at all fashion challenged and extremely popular.  While she had a Marching Band connection, it was as the center of the front line of the Tigerettes, the dance line.  Just a tad cooler than playing the mellophone.

She quipped recently on Facebook about Lee jeans.  I knew immediately I was in deep trouble.  I have no fewer than three pairs of Lee jeans in my closet.  I've liked them since high school (maybe that should have been my first clue).  I felt especially stylish this fall when I ventured into 'skinny' leg Lee Jeans to pair with what I thought was a rockin' pair of maroon red Chinese Laundry high heel boots.  And that lady from the TV show What Not To Wear endorses Lee jeans, so I concluded I was A-OK.

People immediately piled on to the Facebook comment, deriding the Lees.  Uh-oh.  I had to 'fess up.  And I had to find out what I should wear--obviously that know-nothing from What Not To Wear can't be trusted.  

The cool kids guided me gently toward Lucky jeans and even the Gap.  I feel quite certain that this is not the true epitome of cool jean-dom, but I had challenged them with a frugal limit of $40.  Even with sales and promo codes and my trusty Ebates and Plastic Jungle, I still blew past that limit to try the recommended Gap sexy bootcut jean.

Whatever a homeschooling mom of five may be, sexy probably is not the first word or even the hundredth that would cross most peoples' minds.  I'm mostly ok with that.  Still, I'm eager to see what the sexy bootcut jean will do for me.  Will there be swooning in the streets?  People thinking to themselves, "Oh, I bet she was da bomb in high school?"  Do folks even say 'da bomb' anymore?

Secretly, I suspect I'll end up returning those Gap jeans and slouching back into my Lees.  I really do like them, mom jeans though they may be.  And I can buy them at Walmart when I'm out grocery shopping.  For me, this is a plus (and perhaps should have been my second clue).

All is not lost.  I found this online:  Adam Glassman, creative director of O, The Oprah Magazine, has scoured the fashion world to find a budget-conscious jean on which he can put his fashion stamp of approval. 

"I'm always looking for great jeans under $100," he says. "Guess what? I found a pair of jeans under $50. They're totally incredible, they're only $42, and they're by Lee Jeans."

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/style/Adam-Glassmans-Favorite-Affordable-Jeans/1#ixzz1oCyZWRek

Psst, Adam, they're only $18 at Walmart and located directly across from the peanut butter.

Old Mom, Albeit with a New Trick

A new mom friend queried Facebook, asking for forward facing car seat recommendations.  The first responder suggested Britax.  I've never heard of Britax and I've had kids in car seats for 16 years now.  How surprised I was to see the next 8 or 9 comments all praising Britax.

From this, I concluded--as if being a 44 year old mother of a two year old wasn't conclusive enough--that I am an old mom.  Britax must be a new brand dazzling the 30 and under crowd.  I remembered back to when I was a young mom and the ancient-of-days 40 year olds all wanted to tell me how they put their kids to sleep on their stomachs.  Had I become that person?

Turns out, I'm not.  It's way worse than that.  In researching Britax for this little post, I learned that they actually began selling car seats in the U.S. within a couple of years of when I started turning out mini-clones of Mr. Wonderful.  Why had I not heard of them?

Not because I am old, but because I am cheap.  The Britax model the moms most seemed to love will set you back about $280.  Don't let the cute leopard pattern, fashion forward material fool you.  These seats are quite safe, routinely garnering top awards in crash tests.

Wonderful, I thought, not only am I cheap, but I am an endangerer of my childrens' welfare by stuffing them into I-don't-even-know-what brand of car seat.  My primary definition of a satisfactory seat is one which the kid can buckle himself into by age four with a material that doesn't show poop.

But wait!  Nimbly, I shifted into what John Ortberg categorizes as our "staggering" capacity for self-deception.  If I remember correctly, didn't Freakonomics conclusively demonstrate a few years back that car seats are no better at preventing fatalities than seat belts in children over age 2?  Ha!  See?  Problem solved.  I am a good mother and a wise steward of limited resources to boot.

Not quite.  Deciding I should fact check Freakonomics before hurling it into cyberspace, I discovered that while Freakonomics did indeed assert that and while it may even be true for fatalities, it is most assuredly not true for injuries.  Kids in boosters get injured less often and less severely than those in seat belts.

Drat.  I was back to the unflattering image of myself as cheap and wildly unsafe.  My Ortbergian self soothed me, "At least you're not really all that old."

Feeling chipper, I ran into that new mom, who asked me to present our family's Christ-focused Christmas traditions at the monthly women's ministry gathering.  Me?  Traditions?  Having a tradition means that you've done something over and over and over for a number of years.  Hey, I don't like where this thought is leading!  I am old!  I cursed myself for ever telling that young thing that I jog in a sweatshirt older than she is.  Not all truth needs to be spoken.

I rushed to speak first at the gathering this morning, certain that the real experts--those with children functioning as capable adults in society as compared to my endearingly awkward and still dependent teens--would share all my ideas before I could.  Then I'd just be sitting there all old and clueless, like in the Britax conversation.

I needn't have worried.  God arranged the chat perfectly with one mom passionate about evangelism sharing all the fun outreach activities they did, another mom talking of how one can use even non-Christ focused Christmas objects to point people toward God, and I shared our Adore-naments and Jesse Tree ornaments and devotions.  Few in the group had heard of a Jesse tree before and I was secretly thrilled to send them a $5.99 link to purchase their own set after the talk.

Maybe being old and cheap isn't so bad after all.

Blessings,
Holly

Christmas Came and Went

The Facebook pleadings for a few more hours in the day, a clone, another week, have slowed now.  Rather than busy and important sounding, status updates such as these might now read as merely disorganized and inept.  Or perhaps there is resignation amongst my friends and acquaintances, a sense that if it isn't done by now, it probably won't get done.  Alternatively, it's possible that these folks have simply become such a critical mass of frenzied activity that they can no longer spare the few minutes a day to update us.  Whatever the cause,  I sense the Christmas quiet beginning to descend.

We normally have a quiet Christmas season.  I've spent no small amount of self-deceiving energy constructing righteous rationalizations as to why this is so.  We intentionally live with margin.  We choose our activities judiciously.  We center on deep spiritual meaning rather than commercial frenzy.  Truth is, we probably just have fewer friends than a lot of people.  Five sick kids, four inches of snow and a good book from the library doesn't hurt the motivation to curl up and stay home.

My Christmas came and went last week.  It arrived in a difficult and necessary conversation with a friend.  It moved through painful honesty and concluded with reconciliation as the desired and that much closer, possible end.

Christmas doesn't come every year, at least not to me.  Some years it is the Santas, the elves on shelves, the white elephants.  Fun but ultimately meaningless.  Every so often, though, the reconciliation that God intended by sending his Son to redeem humanity blazes through the trappings and pierces hearts.

Peace on Earth.  Goodwill toward men.

Merry Christmas!

Blessings,
Holly