I remember when I first made the clear connection between what I wore and how I felt. It was the dawn of middle school, which in our district was seventh grade. Back in the dark ages of the 1980’s when I rode my very own dinosaur to school we called it “junior high.” We also called it terrifyingly awkward.

Nervous beyond measure about the brave new world of “big school,” I clearly remember donning my first double layer of polo shirts with the “popped” collar (read: collar standing straight up so it tickled our ears. This required endless fussing and adjusting throughout the day and caused more than one teacher to threaten, exasperated, to snip the collars clean off with scissors if we didn’t stop fidgeting and take a note on the hydrologic cycle or pre-algebra already!) I paired this fetching double layer of short sleeve chic with a pair of deep indigo Gloria Vanderbilt jeans so stiff it was difficult to bend my knees to sit, and a pair of the all-powerful Nike tennis shoes with the burgundy swoosh. While clothes shouldn’t matter. They did. And they do. They really, really do. I practically floated into the school, blissfully confident that I would stand out chiefly by fitting in.

Many years hence, and now a stay at home Mom who can work in her bathrobe if need be, I don’t actually remember the last time I donned an outfit designed to increase my strut through the grocery store. Not that I don’t have clothes in my closet that make me feel like a million bucks, I do. It’s just that a classic A-line linen number with coordinating kitten heels just isn’t quite right for the PTO.

Thus, I get up each day and wear something respectable, practical, and probably half a decade old. Accordingly, I now live vicariously through my daughter.

Found. Miss Thing, at seven, has finally found her fashion sense. After six and three quarters years of not giving a fig what she wears up to and including her brother’s hand-me-down overalls, she has been hit – and hard - with the knowledge that a great outfit can make a great day.

Channeling her inner girlie-girl my athletic, bug catching, tomboy has discovered the giddy allure of pretty dresses, twirly skirts, and the all-mighty power of the curling iron. She favors frilly dresses clearly designed for Easter Sundays and bridal parties. These are to be paired with “clicky” shoes (otherwise known as patent leather shoes that make that distinctly delicious tapping noise when walking on hard surface flooring). She will forego these only on PE days and only grudgingly. Even then you are likely to find her pounding out the kick balls in full crinoline and sneakers.

Accordingly, getting dressed each morning has morphed from an easy shrug into a cute little tee-shirt and jeans into a full-blown production featuring tights, accessories, and hair product.

Of course I enjoyed dressing her to the nines as an infant, but as affirmed country dwellers, I really did revel in having a child who would willingly – and quite cheerfully – don a sofa slipcover if I’d asked her to. Now, my little fashion maven is dropping ominous hints about shopping and uttering four-letter-words such as “mall.”

As I drip-dry all these party dresses (lest they all melt in a puddle of petrol-based shiny fabric and netting in my dryer), I ponder the importance of appearance and confidence and the messages – both pro and con – that this might send to a modern girl.

Style. Dropping her off, I watched her walk in to the school. She’s a little thing, nearly staggering under the weight of her pink kitty bookbag. Yet, somehow, she looks taller, her shoulders are squared and it’s a wonder those clicky shoes are any use at all as she fairly floats, rather than walks, into the building. In short, she looks exactly as only someone who feels really good about themselves can.  If I was a betting woman, I’d say she’s probably going to feel great all day long and probably won’t change out of those clothes till bedtime.

That’s ok, because as I saw her disappear behind the doors, I too was immediately back in school, wearing my corduroy skirt, Holly Hobby tee-shirt, and walking tall in my wedge-heel Hush Puppy shoes.

I probably looked like a train wreck, but I felt like a million bucks.

I’ve decided that learning to feel good in your own skin – and the clothes your skin is in – is admirable. Fashions may come and fashions may go but the feeling you get from feeling good about yourself never really goes out of style.

Looking over the obligatory school supply list for the upcoming school year it occurs to me that while I want to be a team-player, some of the items seem to be a bit out-of-control.

I get the need for crayons, pencils, and I’ll even spot the school the Kleenex for all those runny noses and incessant sneezes of the kids who “weren’t even a little bit sick” when their mothers and fathers shoved them out the door that morning.

Now, however, the school has added Clorox wipes to the supply list.

What next? Are we going to be asked to chip in toilet tissue for the restrooms and chicken nuggets for the cafeteria?

It seems that our nation’s retailers and I have come to a complete and utter impasse as to what “back to school” entails.

Different ideas. I see it as an opportunity to send our students off to school freshly dressed, pressed, and appropriately outfitted to learn. Retailers apparently see it as an opportunity to outfit our nation’s daughters for stripper school.

Where, pray tell, have all the sweet little plaid skirts gone? The Mary Janes? The pinafores?

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It’s almost time to go back to school! Very excited. New faces, new challenges. However, is it really necessary to bring out back to school ads, supplies, backpacks, etcetera by July 4th? As a teacher it evokes panic. For children it’s like some insane cosmic joke. For parents, possibly a comfort to know that September will be here before you know it. It’s mid-August and if you haven’t stocked up on crayons, notebooks and lunch boxes you’re out of luck. It’s like trying to buy a bathing suit in July. What? You didn’t purchase your suit in March? No pool for you this summer sucker!

Then yesterday I made a trip to my local super market. The school supplies are gone. There are a few dishevelled backpacks strewn about the floor and couple boxes of broken crayons. There is, however, an abundance of Halloween candy, costumes, and decor. It is August 14. Who has time to think of Halloween? Who is buying Halloween candy (which I assume will be less than fresh by October 31)? Who I am kidding — Halloween candy bought today would last until about 11pm in my house. Who has cash for a costume after spending a mini fortune on back-to-school clothes?

I can’t even get into the Halloween spirit until the middle of October. I need crisp fall weather. Red and orange leaves crunching beneath my brown leather boots. The smell of wood-burning stoves and apple cider. I know it’s only a few weeks before those inflatable snowmen appear on store shelves.

I have an aunt who is done Christmas shopping in July because she despises holiday shopping crowds. I get the whole “get it done now” mantra, but aren’t retailers and manufactures going to the extremes?  They’re taking the fun out of holidays and the change of season — and, at least for me, causing major consumer stress.

The beginning of a new school year is bittersweet in my house. Daydreaming all summer long of productive separation from your children sounds promising, but it’s never all it’s cracked up to be and often brings more challenges and annoyances than the lazy days of summer do.

To be honest, I never liked school. I only like school now, or the thought of school, because it’s not me that is actually going. Little did I know that having children in school is just as cumbersome and trying as it was when I was actually going myself.

The 10 things that make me curse what is supposed to be a good thing:

1. Shoes

What’s so bad about shoes you ask?…Buying them. Why is it that I remember going to actual shoe stores that measured our feet and brought out several options for me to choose from? It seems that the only places to get shoes fitted these days is either Nordstrom or Stride Rite. My older son is too big for Stride Rite and Nordstrom is expensive and inconvenient.

Where do parents buy their kids shoes anymore?? It seems that it has all come down to a guessing game in a “help yourself” model of shoe stores. I don’t wanna help myself. I need someone to tell me which shoes run big/small. I need some GD service. Is that too much to ask???

2. Homework

Okay, perhaps this should have been number 1. Why is it that teachers give out homework on material children don’t know or haven’t learned yet? What do kids do in school exactly? Why do I get the feeling that teachers spend more time handing out “naughty” passes and watching “educational” films and send home assignments for parents to simply home school their kids.

I’m so tired of having to teach my child the material on the homework. Am I alone in this?

3. Bedtime

Over the summer, we let our kids stay up later than normal. They also sleep in later than normal. Every year we explain that bedtime is 8:30am, but it never sticks. The kids are always out of their mind hyper and crazy from the time they get home until bedtime. They lose track, we lose track and the whole bedtime process always starts 30 minutes to an hour later than it should. The kids are bouncing off the walls, conspiring together to thwart my attempts at getting them into bed so I can finally rest. They are not tired at all. I am, but they’re not.

4. Illness

The start of school brings green snots, loose stools, airborne germs from coughing and household epidemics. One parent’s need for peace is another parent’s runny nose and misery that keeps on giving. It’s an ongoing cycle which makes you wonder how in the world parents can send their sickly, assholey kids to school to infect good, law abiding citizens, until you do it yourself.

“Well, its’ just a cough,” you reason. “As long as he isn’t running or jumping or doing anything physical, he’s fine.” Then your kid comes home and says, “The teacher said that I shouldn’t have even come to school today. I used a whole box of Kleenex.” Then it’s you that feels like the gigantic a-hole, but his brother was just home last week. One of these days, you’re going to need to get something done and it was just a little cough.

5. Book Clubs

Why do I feel like I’m being judged for not ordering crappy, paperback books which I already have a triplicate? Why does my son feel left out on the day that the books are doled out to the parents that weren’t cheap? I don’t like it.

6. Fundraisers

The only thing worse than the book fair are school fundraisers. My co-workers have already walked around, extorting me for money for their own snotty kid when I have my own snotty kid to pimp wrapping paper for. What makes them think that I’m interested in their candy bars, cookie dough and Entertainment Books?

I’m not a door-to-door type. Can’t I just write a check, preferably in the $20 range and be done with it? And, of course, there’s always the overachiever that sells an exemplary amount of fundraising crap and gets a free bicycle or something. Who do they think they are? Some of us don’t have large extended families to fill PTA coffers.

7. Open houses

Okay, now I’m gonna sound like a quintessential Imperfect Parent, but I hate open houses. It’s always crowded and you always leave thinking that you know less than before it started.

My son’s open house is a big sham. It’s a way to get you into the gym so the PTA can guilt you into volunteering and the principal can lay out his/her plans for the year and expectations and parental reprimands, “Don’t pick up your child on the south side of the building, don’t bring dogs to school, don’t arrive too early or too late.”

In the classroom versions, I never get anything out of it. There is nothing on the walls, and my ADD mind wanders as he/she tells how they are going to teach to the test this year. Wow! That’s new and compelling and so worth our tax dollars.

8. Lost & Found

I don’t know why kids are always snaggin’ my son’s belongings or why he’s always losing his shit, but weekly trips to the school’s lost and found are routine in our family. What bugs me is when kids take his jackets or gloves or hats and then we don’t see ‘em for weeks. What’s with these parents not noticing or not caring? I actually write my kids names on their tags and even with that, things disappear. Sometimes my son will actually tell me who took his stuff and it takes several phone calls to the parents to get it back. Now, I know that gray hoodies look alike, but if I paid for a Gap hoodie, I don’t really want to settle for an Old Navy one, get my drift?

9. Flu Shots

To get ‘em or not to get ‘em? Advice?

10. Nagging my children for the scoop

Why does a simply innocent question about how one’s day went, turn into early teenage angst? Even my preschooler blows me off. I work and I don’t think it’s too much to ask that my kids share a little piece of their day with me. Instead, they give me one word answers or “I don’t know” or “Quit asking me, it’s just okay.” Grrrrrr.

And, last, an honorable mention to traffic. It didn’t make the list, but if anyone can answer why it now takes me an hour to get to work (ever since school started), versus the summertime 30 minute commute, I would greatly appreciate it. Do that many high schoolers drive to school? Does half the working community take summers off? Vacations? Teachers? What is up with that????

Why is the beginning of the year so stressful????