Not much separates my sleeping self from my waking self in terms of appearance. When you don’t have to leave the house for days at a time (at least in the freezing winter months) it can be difficult to motivate ones’ self to look any particular way at all. For example, I don’t believe I’ve even looked at my own reflection in the mirror yet today, and it’s 1:06 p.m. If I had a job in an office somewhere I’d at least do a spot check to make sure any unsightly hairs hadn’t poked through during sleep or to monitor skin dryness or hair unruliness.
There are a few things I do every day to help define day from night, playtime from nighty-night time, being inside the house and outside the house.
- Dress the girls. Every day when they wake up I go into their room and change them out of their jammies and into pants and shirts. This signifies to them and me that we’ve started the day.
- Dress myself. Clean underwear. No matter if I’m wearing the same shirt I slept in or if I’m in the same pants as the day before. Clean undies, clean socks.
- Put on a bra. Me wearing a bra means I am out of bed. I can take a nap wearing a bra, but the bra stays on until dinnertime usually. Once A&B have gone down for the evening and I’m planted on the couch with my husband, eating dinner and watching telly, lounge time has officially begun, and bratime is over.
- If I am doing something in the evening or if my parents are watching the girls during the day as they sometimes do, I apply lipstick once I am seated in the car. Put on lipstick, slip back into being a part of the larger population of people outside my house. Not a mama, but just another person. With Peony Pink on her lips.
20 Fingers, 20 Toes 