Will the Curse of the School Uniform be broken in 2010-11?

Here I am thinking that we finally have figured this whole school uniform thing out. Now mind you, our Girl is going into the second grade tomorrow so we weren't quick learners. Those of you not in the uniform game, it is not as easy as it seems.

Let's revisit our mistakes: Kinder-we were excited know-it-all parents who had to learn via the school of hard knocks about availability of uniforms. We were warned-but did we heed that warning? Noooo. My cousin who has a daughter told me "You need to buy uniform pants early because they sell out." Me: "Umm, okay." (But in my head I'm thinking, there are TONS of pants around.) Know what? They sell out of uniform pants!! Ouch. Yep, we were those parents who had to special order our kids uniform pants and pay a grip for them online.

First grade- We bought enough pants for the year, but I neglected to revisit my Girls fashion sense and patterned my buying to what we had purchased for Kinder. So she had a bunch of jumpers that prompted the:"Mom, only the little kids wear jumpers debacle!" Hey kid, we're furloughed, you're gonna wear those jumpers. This prompted the massive leggings purchases to hide the fact that she was rockin' the jumpers.

So here we are going into the Second grade. Each item I purchased with her and asked the same "Are you going to wear this?" question. We have a good variety of shorts, skirts, pants and even a jumper (She swears she wants to wear it!) I have 900 polo's in a variety of somewhat acceptable school colors (we do push the dress code limit a bit) and a cute new sweatshirt that will be lost as soon as the weather changes. As we put the Girl to bed tonight, I feel pretty prepared for this year, uniform-wise. Could this be the year that we did it right? I doubt it too.

I think I've fallen off the "cool" track...

So it is now official, I have seen Choo Choo Soul more than any other "band" in recent years. For those of you who don't know who Choo Choo Soul are they are a "hip hop" duo who are showcased on Playhouse Disney. Granted there are worse children's bands I could see three times (The Wiggles) but sitting at the concert in the park last night it hit me: I used to be cool. I was, I swear!! I went to concerts, slept on the concrete overnight to get tickets to the Guns N Roses/Metallica show and followed many ska shows in Hollywood with the three a.m. Denny's run. Now look at me, cheering on DC as he beatboxes. Then I look over at the Girl, so happy to be dancing like a chicken and I think maybe being cool wasn't all it was cracked up to be.