Disco Balls and Fur Coats

My children are FAB-U-LOUS, and I mean in a very groovy, dance to the beat of their own drummer, wearing plaids with stripes AND polka dots kind of a way. And I love it.

This comes, mind you, from a woman who, in fourth grade had an official "pin" day every week or two where I wore on the front of my red shirt every pin I owned in my substantial pin collection. My scoop neck shirt was scooping dangerously low by the end of the day, but given that I wasn't in touch with my appeal as a member of the feminine gender until, oh, about twenty years later, I simply worried whether all the pins showed up equally. Pin equality.

My siblings probably don't remember the pin days as fondly as the fact that EVERY day I wore one of a collection of terry cloth headbands with small stuffed wings (or horns, given my mood) attached to each side, or baseball hats with either a rainbow arching dorkily over the top or wings, again, on each side. This, of course, is merely the tip of my fashion disaster iceberg. Sadly, once the realization of my fashion uniqueness (a favorite artifact of those days? My unicorn mug with necessary rainbow and the words "Heather - Unique" emblazoned on it)dawned on me, I spent the next fifteen years dressed only in shades of, as my mother christened it, "forest": olive green, chocolate brown, and black.

So, the day Jordan came out of her room wearing colors and patterns together that in all seriousness made my eyeballs sting, I told her how beautiful she looked and we went off to school. I haven't loved my "forest" years - in fact, I see myself as sort of stylistically paralyzed. In my teenage years my mother had her colors "done" - and ours, too. I was a fall, I think, and I took that seriously. Gone were the days of spring pastels and the ripe jewel colors of a "summer". Fall meant muted colors. Bare tree limbs. Evergreen boughs. I couldn't keep straight those shades of red that were warm or cool, couldn't discern whether they were "blue" reds or "orange" reds and so I went to black and brown. I had some interesting pieces in these colors, I think, and some funky coats and jackets to help dress them up, but it's taken motherhood to get me to embrace once again color.


Having a girl is interesting - we don't want her mired in thoughts only of how she looks. When I bought her a faux leopard winter coat, Tom said, "Here we go," but I was thinking something the opposite. Jordan doesn't dress to look like other girls. She spent a full year, 1/5 of her life ONLY wearing dresses or skirts. A small part of me wanted desperately for her to want to wear blue jeans, but she was entirely tomboy in her tutu, so it was more of an internal rebellion against my mom's highschool rule: we had to wear a skirt or dress at least once a week. She's eased up and does dresses, skirts, pants, jeans, and of course, still dabbles generously in nakedness. I want her to care about how she looks to the point that I want her to want to wear clean clothes that fit and are good quality, appropriate to some measure for the situation, and that she feels good in - I want her to not care if they match, if they are in style, if they are what so and so would wear. We call her leopard coat her "rock star" coat and I like that. We all want secretly to be a rock star - or something a little wilder, cooler, different than what we are. Being able to dress in a way that nods slightly at that wild side is a great way of self expression, I think.

I often feel sorry for Sawyer when it comes to clothes - he's got some fun button down shirts, "party shirts", but nowhere near the rainbow array of his sister's closet. He does manage some pretty wild matching of shirts and pants, which boggles my mind given how boring a lot of it can seem in overview. He likes to add flair, though, in the form of funky hats or a borrowed scarf. And when the girls are picking out clips for their hair in the morning, he's right next to them. He does have fabulous hair, like his dad. Tom opts for self expression through facial hair and head hair and Sawyer has his Dad's mop. Right now, it's a different color, but one my friends swear women would pay hundreds of dollars to recreate in the stylist's chair. It's getting to a length now that it's reverting to the indefatigable mohawk that showed up at about four months old. His hair and his smile - that'll get him through. And, I hope, a penchant for clean shirts, nice jeans, and the occasional well put together shirt and pants set. Nothing wrong with a little pride in your appearance, I say.

Last week we ran into the head of Jordan's school at hospice. I had just stopped to admire a grown up "rock star" jacket hanging on a rack. "I almost bought that for you," she said, "but I didn't know if you'd wear it." I crossed a line just then, out of the forest and back towards my youth. I don't want to go all the way back to winged sweat bands, but I do want to be recognized as someone who'd wear a rock star jacket. I want to dress a little more like my kids. Less conformity, more joy. She bought it for me, I cleaned it and I've worn it. And plan to a lot - even if it's just over my workout clothes on the way to the gym.

My kids wear about 90% hand me downs which fits right into our belief systems about a) not spending what we don't have, and b) not buying more of what the earth doesn't need. It goes right from us to other families and I'm still amazed by what's in storage waiting for my siblings to pony up a niece or nephew. There is joy in seeing clothes your kids have worn on a friend's child, and vice versa. And joy in seeing how differently each one wears it.

Jordan had her 5th birthday party last week. The third disco party in a row, and it was fabulous. I dressed up, Jordan dressed up, some friends and some kids did as well. Someone brought the perfect music, someone was painting kids faces, adults ate and drank and talked, kids ran wild, everyone danced. Her parties are legend, not for their craziness or for how perfect they are, but for how joyful they are. A disco ball, Cincinnati chili, dutch oven birthday cake, and as many friends as we can possibly pack in our house make them wonderful. We ask her what kind of party she wants - she's been to all types and we love the variety - and she without hesitation says "disco." I hope we can keep that spirit alive in her for a long time. Inside and out.