Clothes-N-Stuff

OK, so it's been about a year since the Former Mister (FM for the recall-challenged) and I began our Co-Parenting gig. For those not in the know, we have joint custody, and the State of Michigan in their infinite wisdom subscribes to a convoluted system known as 2-2-5. This means that the Chicas are with me Monday/Tuesday, with him Wednesday/Thursday and then we switch every other weekend. It was presented as The Solution because it allows for the most "touches" per parent per year--terminology that I am absolutely not making up--in this realm kids are actually referred to in a manner usually reserved for leather-bound-spheres.

So this 2-2-5 arrangement actually works out OK for the Chicas. They are still young, so their world revolves around the days of the week--dance on Monday, soccer Tuesday--it's the grown-ups in their lives that struggle. I cannot tell you how many times I've heard "Oh, I never know where they're going to be--you've just made things so confusing..." as if I possess half of the bureaucratic know-how to create an arrangement that is so monumentally cumbersome. For it is not so much shuttling the Chicas between the FM and myself that is the issue--I for one have yet to lose one of them--it's all their Stuff that's the problem.

Yes, the dance shoes, the soccer kit, the library books and the lunchboxes, all need to be in a certain house on certain days. I would guesstimate that the FM and I do a good job on that 86.9% of the time. We have a lower success rate with with The Guys, but overall we do OK. Now in our family, The Guys refer to any number of stuffed animals, blankets and soft toys that make up the mountain under which the Chicas sleep on a given night. Without fail, when they arrive back in my home, at least one Chica is missing "the" Guy of the moment--the Webkin they covet, the dusty threadbare dog they discovered in the basement last week, or even worse, the itty-bitty My Little Pony finger puppet that came in a Happy Meal 3 years ago. Yes the inter-home movement of The Guys is an ongoing source of consternation for me, but oh, so much worse is the issue with the clothes.

Now, I understand that things get lost, but on a consistent basis clothing items leave my home never to be seen or heard from again. Its as if my house, his house, and the school create this perfect Bermuda Triangle of apparel-swallowing mojo. Even better, the duds that do come into my home are funky, ill-fitting things that are clearly sent in the hopes that they do not return. Now, I am not one of those moms whose kids must always look like they stepped out of a LL Bean catalogue. On the contrary--I am all about kids wearing what they want, I would just prefer that my offspring don't look like refugee urchins who got dressed out of a bag of Goodwill castoffs in the dark.

Such is my fixation on this issue, I sometimes lose sight of things, the old forest-trees problem that I continue to struggle with. Case in point--the FM and the Chicas arrive at my house last Friday for the early-morning weekend transfer. They each have their backpacks, and Bags-o-Guys, and then I see the Middle Chica roll up in an ensemble that quite nearly stopped my heart. She had on faded black leggings adorned with candy corns, polka dot socks with brown shoes (a huge pet peeve of mine--no matter how sketchy they may be, black pants require black shoes) and an enormous blue Finding Nemo sweatshirt, whose Nemo looked inordinately peely and all sides of wrong. She looked like a chick emerging from her double-wide on her way to bail out her old-man Rodney on an episode of Cops. So the door closes and I immediately turn to her, point, and say "Seriously-upstairs now, you are not going anywhere, let alone school, dressed like that--absolutely not, move it now--seriously." To which she responds with a blank look, and a whimper and says, very quietly, "But Mommy, today is Mis-Match Day." Ouch.

I attempted to redeem myself by telling her how fabulous she looked, and helped her find a really crappy Valentine T-shirt and formerly-light-up Christmas headband to go with it. It was still one of those lovely, classic, "God I suck so bad" moments that only occur post-childbirth, but it served to remind me--yes, it's the principle, and yes, he should try harder to return the stuff, but at the end of the day, it's just clothes, they are just kids, and things happen. I just need to be more tolerant, and in some cases, smarter.

And so when Wordy-Shirt-Wednesday comes, and I drop my children off for their long weekend with FM, I will make sure that they each wear their very favorite "My Mom Rocks" T-shirts, because I still do, and more importantly, I'm pretty sure I'll get those back.