My messy bun is N O T for fashion

It always cracks me up when I see ladies with make up done perfectly, stud earrings in, and styled hair to make it appear as though they are lounging around all day “not done up” and their outfit is stylishly relaxed but “thrown together”. You know the look I’m talking about.

The look that social media will have us believing is the stay at home mom look, but in fact takes time (you know the sort of precious thing us moms have very little of), it takes effort which we have little space for in our morning routines and it takes a well coordinated and stocked wardrobe which anyone that’s been a mom for a year or two (that doesn’t also work in a business casual environment) most likely can’t remember the last time they bought themselves something new, fashionable and cute for their closet. If we have bought something recently it’s most likely to replace the old shirt from a decade ago that has too many holes to be acceptable and now it’s in the one corner of the closet where our six nice things live.

As for styling hair? Listen if I’m rolling into preK drop off with my hair in a messy bun, rest assured it has not been washed and style then teased and pinned just right to make it appear like an effortless look that happens to be flawless. It is actually thrown up in a rats nest because I didn’t wash it and one of my four girls stole my brush so I couldn’t brush it.

Will I be in yoga pants? Most likely, that or jeans, or running clothes. Will my outfit match with a layered look, an off the shoulder sweater with a cute lace bralette, a sporty button up half rolled at the sleeve and a trendy hat? Heavens no! Will my white shoes look white and crisp? Stop asking ludicrous questions.

Odds are it will just be a t-shirt and some form of pant or short. If I’m not in flip flops or rain boots then I’ll be in a slip on tennis shoe, the hallmark of motherhood.

If I manage to find a pair of trendy aviator glasses, they will most likely be crooked on my face because one ear is lower than the other and I never take the time to balance the sunglasses. I usually just shove it up higher on my head on the one low ear side. Eventually they fall back down and I look ridiculous but such is life.

IF my make up is done, it’s because I found my mascara in the center console right before I pulled out of the driveway. If I smell like perfume, it’s because my 4 year old doused herself in a bath and body spray in our bathroom then hugged me hence transferring the scent.

There will be no jewelry.

This is not because I don’t want to look nice and put together. It’s because my morning starts with an urgent pump session (see “milking and my lost modesty” post) followed by running my short order kitchen because my children wake up at 0700 no matter when they fell asleep, getting our Bible lesson in before we leave for drop off and then rushing into the van, saying “Seats and seatbelts” approximately 7 times and trying my very best to not speed on the way to preK. Mornings are not quiet in my house, they are not tranquil as the sun comes up and the birds sing. No. I sit at my kitchen counter pumping at 6, stirring upstairs starts at 0630 and then we hit the ground running at 7.

On occasion I manage a pair of earrings, mascara, straightened hair annnnnnd jeans. This always results in my husband saying “woahhhhhh where are we going tonight?!?” Notice I said nothing about nice shoes, eyeshadow, perfume or anything other than basic life happening and yet my husband is astounded by my beauty.

It’s not my beauty so much as the sparing moments in which I’ve showered and dressed myself appropriately resulting in a lack of everyday motherhood grind appearance.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my comfortable convenient style which really is more or less an absence of style. Which as you see below, my attempted at the "casual effortlessly beautiful" mom style is the same for day dates, running, and last minute neighborhood walks. Its nothing fancy and its certainly N O T the pinterest motherhood fashion.

But can we just drop the charade, don’t come at me as a perfectly dressed, styled good smelling mom and tell me “oh I just threw this on, this is yesterday’s make up” alllllllright, mmmmmkay. Gotcha.

Like even on my best day with nearly maximum effort I S T I L L don't look like those ladies from social media! I mean I look presentable, and I can make my messy buns look less like a birds nest and more like an acceptable hair style but I am still not sporting anything trendy. Just my nearly decade old T-shirts and sweaters from college and sometimes even high school.

Ain’t nobody believing that none sense about these women showing up with "little to no effort", and they shouldn’t have to hide the fact that they’ve managed to get their life together enough to have the blessed time to look fantastic. Can we just normalize it and let them be free to admit they put in actual effort so the rest of us realistic moms know not to compare apples to oranges? Because most days, my hair is tossed back into a pony tail (it requires even less effort than a bun of any sort) with my mutton chop style new growth from 4 rapid succession pregnancies hanging down and my sweet side burns that occasionally make me look more like my brother than I am willing to admit. See below for my daily "look" it is decidedly not something worth following on any social media platform. Obviously if you are here reading my blog its for my charming wit, story telling and sporadic sometimes helpful tips on parenting, it's not for my fashion that's for dang sure.