The uniform for a surburban mom

Speaking of What Not to Wear and fashion emergencies... I am having a fashion crisis of my own... dealing with life after babies...

Everyone use to say that I was fashionable. If I had to answer those questions in Seventeen magazine (or Cosmo, Glamour, etc as I got older)... that asked about how fashion savvy I was, I would always check the one that said that YES, I AM A FASHION GODDESS!!! I am not sure where the fashion train got de-railed, but... it is certainly off track right now.

It's funny, I looks around at the normal suburban mom uniform. Note: I do NOT live in some chic suburb of a major metropolitan area. So, people are not quite so fashion forward in my neck of the woods... but I see an awful lot of Juicy couture (or knock-off) velour sweatsuits and Gap issued yoga attire. Mind you, I do think that these items do look cute on and have a time and place - but not stuff that I want to wear EVERY DAY. Face it, unless you do not have the slightest bit of 'muffin top', the Juicy bottoms just do NOT look good. And, unless I am headed to or from the gym, I don't normally wear my gym clothes out and about.

Dressing used to be so easy... for work, I had my cute, fashionable suits and business casual wear. Pair my outfit with a rockin' pair of stillettos, and even in my early and mid 20's, I felt that I could own any board meeting that I walked into. Now, the same stilettos invoke a fear of sorts... the wear TOTALLY taboo during my pregnancies, since I am not the most graceful human that ever walked the planet (not that I ever fell in my 4 inch heels,but something with the shifting of my center of gravity and the snow and ice in the NE did NOT make me even want to attempt to put on a pair of boots or shoes with even a minimum heel). In the months post-partum, I dare not wear heels, because my body was trying to adjust to the weight loss (losing and gaining the 60 baby pounds made me feel 'clunky') and carrying around the precious bundle. Since I was concentrating on keeping the wee one safe, I wasn't looking for pot holes in the road and sidewalk, and I just felt that risking everyone's safety for the sake of looking good wasn't worth it.

Going out on the weekends pre-baby was pretty easy too. I would always go and buy a new outfit for whatever event I was headed to (even if it was to just go and check out a new club that opened with a new guy). I never really gave what I wore much thought, since getting dressed was fun for me.

Not so much nowadays... where I have to worry about whether or not something is dry clean (or even worse - hand wash) only... within 5 minutes of having a piece of clothing on my body, it is normally covered in snot, juice, banana, you name it - whatever is on the hands of my little ones ends up all over me, no matter how careful I am. Between that and steering clear of certain colors (too dark means that everything shows up and, well, so it goes with clothing on the other end of the spectrum)... what do I wear??? I want to look cute, not frumpy... sexy, but not OTT, Milf'ish... young (I AM only 30)... yet, I feel like I can't find clothes that fit the bill anymore... they are either too conservative (i.e. make me look like my mother's age) or too teenie-bopperish. Where are the middle of the road clothes that fit into a normal person's budget (ok, so I DO see things online, but I am NOT spending $300 a pop on a shirt!).

Sigh - well, time to get the day started, which means digging through mismatched articles of clothing to pull together an outfit that doesn't make me look too frumpy - at least my kids are too young to be embarassed by their mom, so I have some time to get this figured out :).