Dress Up Day Despair

I love school.  I love all types of school – public school, homeschool, summer school, private school – all of it.  The school supply aisles in July and August make me giddy. I suppose it has something to do with my life before kids when I was a school teacher. It was a fantastic job and I loved all of it, especially the fun days.  You know the ones. I thought silly sock day and dress like a pirate day and storybook character day were AMAZING! Look at what great teachers we were to be enriching your child’s education!! Y’all, I’m SO SORRY!

This year is the first year I have a child in public school.  My oldest child is in fourth grade, but we have homeschooled thus far.  One of my 6 year olds entered public kindergarten this year at a fantastic school. I love his school and his teacher.  They are amazing and I’m sure they feel the same way I used to about all the dress up, but SWEET MERCY.  Here is a list of all of the dress up we have done this year so far, off the top of my head:

Red Day

Silly Sock Day (x2)

Hat Day

Storybook Character Day

Yellow Day

Career Day

Mickey Mouse Day

Purple Day

Decades Day

Red ribbon day

Green Day

Spirit Day

College Day

Superhero Day

Orange Day

Fun Run Shirt Day (which I paid $12 for)

Sports Team Day

Blue Day

Keep in mind this is not a comprehensive list! You guys, as of this writing, we have only had 47 days of school. That is at least 1/3 of the school days that have been dress up days… I am completely unaccustomed to this amount of wardrobe dictation in my life.  Maybe I’m just spoiled from homeschooling, where we really only needed three shirts a week if no one wiped their dirty hands on their clothes, but I’m drowning over here. 

Please hear me: I LOVE SCHOOL AND TEACHERS, and I so appreciate their desire to make learning fun for my kiddo. But can a momma get a list or something? I’m officially stating my desire for a comprehensive list of dress up days along with our school supply list so I can properly prepare. I don’t mind participating, but my knee-jerk reaction when we don’t have one of the items is to say: “We don’t have a tiger suit sweetheart, so we’re gonna sit this one out.” I am resolved. We don’t have to participate in every dress up day.  I can still be a good mom without doing every. single. thing. But then about 9pm that night I start imagining my sweet little kid being the only one without orange stripes and I START COLORING A DANG T-SHIRT. The pressure is legit.  

I only have one kid I have to worry about this stuff for.  The rest of my other three might end up wearing peanut butter stains for three days.  If they’re feelin’ good in that stained shirt, and have on clean underwear, then whatever. I can’t even care. Hats off to all of you moms out there with multiple kids participating in all the dress ups. I can’t even imagine. It has basically taken all four wardrobes of my combined children to find something to wear every day for just the one kid. You guys are the real MVP’s!

Anyone else feeling this?  Who loves their teachers and their school, but would also love a list?  I can’t be the only one feeling like I’m working harder on finding dress up clothes than learning sight words. 

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