It's 3am, and I'm waiting for the last load of laundry to dry. I won't sleep with the dryer running, after a childhood garage fire sparked by a dryer.
I'm kicking myself that I didn't get the laundry done earlier, because now the morning will be rushed.
It's always a huge ordeal, packing the fucking overnight bag. I can never count on them to make "presentable" choices. I pick the most eggragious examples from the bag and ask them to pick something else, sometimes. The second option is not usually any better. I exercise my veto on the 5 year old most times.
I used to worry she thought I kept them clothed in hobo rags. That thought used to make me think, "that's not true! The girls have a closet full of beautiful dresses and durable, nice looking play clothes." I know they did, because I picked it all out. After the divorce when I came on the scene, Dad had been handling them by himself for a while, and their wardrobe was in bad shape. They didn't have much to wear. Back then, I used to go on dates to go shopping for the girls. (I was still in the Lets Play House phase of stepparenting.) They love their dresses. So I started to pack for them, and made sure all those nice clothes got seen by their mother. Their brother never had a problem packing, beyond his attraction to tacky Sponge-bob shirts.
I inadvertently sparked another Stepparenting Cold War when I started sending those dresses. This is the kind of stuff they never warned me about.
The cute and durable dresses pissed their mother off. And she fired a shot across my bow, passive-aggressive style. The 5 year old gets home after a weekend at Mom's house, and immediately digs into the bag and pulls out one of her dresses. She holds it up, and says very carefully, one hand on her hip:
"This dress is a friggerless manatee."
I turned slowly from the kitchen counter to look at her, trying to process what the fuck it is she's talking about.
"What, toots? I didn't follow that."
"A friggerless manatee."
"What is a friggerless manatee?"
"Mommy said it's something stupid you spend money on. Did I say it wrong? She wanted me to practice."
A frivolous vanity. She told her 5 year old that a sundress is a frivolous vanity, and made her practice the phrase.
Well, that's one example of it. Another couple of weeks and I noticed the nice clothing wasn't coming back. After that, I wasn't going to bother sending it. If she wants them in nice clothing, she can go out and buy it herself, like we did. And if she complains about the clothes they pack, she can supply a wardrobe at her own home. Which she won't.
Which is why it's 3:30 and my dryer has finally stopped, so I can go to bed.
