Seriously?

Julia wears a uniform to school everyday and about once a month gets to wear jeans to school and a plain black shirt. She has gotten used to wearing a "boring" uniform and doesn't complain about it too much. She isn't a fan of wearing the turtlenecks and begs me to let her wear short sleeve shirts with a sweater over them. The school year has gone well and it does make getting dressed easier.

Tomorrow they are having some pictures taken at school and Julia can wear what she wants to. I thought that she would be so excited to pick out an outfit. Ugh, what happened next can only be described as my worst nightmare and a glimpse at the teen years. I pulled out a few outfits. All of them were pink. All of them had some girly girl flair. All of them were spring-ish. She wanted to wear her Easter dress. Normally I would probably not care, but this dress is dryclean only and isn't something that you could be crawling around a gym floor with (since she has gym tomorrow). I explained this. Tears ensued. Then she started to find fault in all of the outfits we picked out. One of them was scratchy, one of them she already wore in front of people and the other one had a side zipper and she was worried that it would show in the picture? I did yell. I did lose it. I seriously couldn't believe it. She was all upset. After realizing that this was going nowhere...I calmed down and showed her how all 3 were great options. Jimmy came in and gave his 2 cents and Kurt came in and tried to save the day. He got further than I did. Then Grandma called and Julia described each of the outfits (in detail) to her. Grandma will be coming over in the morning to help her. She calmed down. WTH? If this is what I have to look forward to, forget it. I know that I was a girly girl and I still am, but really? this was a little too much. But now that I can reflect on it a little...this is kind of where uniforms backfire. A way you can show your individuality is through dress. When everyone wears the same, they are all the same. There is a lot of pressure when you have to show who you really are. Maybe she is feeling this pressure? She was really concerned about what all of the other girls were going to be wearing and what if she picked the wrong one. We shall see what tomorrow brings. Hopefully my happy little girl who is just excited to wear pink to school tomorrow and not the tween drama queen I spoke with tonight.

I wonder if this is along the same lines of when I was in kindergarten and missed the bus because I was freaking out about my shoelaces not matching my outfit? My mom likes to tell that story. Hmm...does the apple fall far from the tree?