And so it begins

I always figured I had at LEAST a good ten years before my kids started being embarrassed by me. Not so, apparently.

Last week, I had on my early morning ensemble of sweats and a ponytail and was ready to head out the door to take Riley to school--which, by the way, begins at the horrid hour of 7:55 a.m.

Riley looked at me and said, "Mom, don't you want to wear sumpin' more pretty."

To which I responded: "Nope, I'm good."

To which he responded: Well, don't you want to make your hair look nice? You're 'posed to look nice for school."

Ouch.

To Riley's credit, I guess I can kind of see where he's coming on this one. I never bother getting dressed up just to drop him off. And when I pick him up, I'm usually coming from the gym. His teacher has seen me in actual clothes and make-up maybe five times. She probably thinks I'm a crazy bag lady.

To make up for my lack of PTA-momness, I decided to volunteer at Riley's school library book fair. I didn't mention to him that I was going to be there, and I just knew he was going to be oh so very excited to see me. After all, I was wearing actual non-pj clothes and even some make-up. Nothing to be embarrassed about there, right?

Wrong. Riley walks in the door, and I very giddily try to get his attention. "Riley, Riley!" I'm waving my arms and it may be possible that I'm beaming. Riley looks right at me. Then he looks away. And then he proceeds to completely ignore me for the next five minutes.

The humiliation was worsened by the well-meaning grandmotherly lady beside me who had witnessed the whole scene. She kept clucking her tongue and uttering phrases like, "They grow up so fast."

Then, just before the book fair was over, Riley fell down and skinned his knee and came running to me as fast as he could. (And yes, I do realize my child is possibly the only kid on the face of the planet who can manage to injure himself in a library). I was tempted to give him a dose of his own medicine and turn up my nose and find some other kid to hug. But I didn't because, well for one, that probably would have gotten me arrested. AND Secondly, I guess I'll take what I can get.