A PSA: Don't steal from the cRaZy Lady...

A Love Letter To the Parent Who Keeps Stealing Permanently Borrowing My Son's Hoodies:

Dear Fellow Fashionista Whose Child's Clothes "Strangely" Resembles Mine,

You know, there was a time when I didn't know what the heck I was doing with this baby thing... The newness of it all... what to dress him in...

There was a time when it was the middle of July and I had him bundled up like he was about to cross the Bering Straight. Or the times when the season would change and I would, embarrassingly but admittedly, try to get him in that one summer outfit he never got to wear.

But whew!!!!!  What a sigh of relief I can breathe to know that you find my child's sense of style so refreshingly on point!  I mean, I took two seconds to tap myself on the back when you took the first hoodie home.  But now that you've taken them all, YEEEE-HAAAAW!!!! Look out Fashion Week! Here I come!

I totally understand how you can get confused when you pick up your child and there are all those hangers there with the children's names and a picture on them.   At a certain point, it starts to look like you are at a store where they sell everything for FREE99!  And my son does have one of those faces that looks, surprisingly, like everyone according to the people who say he looks like me AND his father (the nerve of these people to suggest he looks like the  both of US and not the neighbors).  And then, the fact that his name is written in the jacket must almost look like a gift tag; and the name merely suggests who it is from!!!  I get it... I do. You should really just send me a thank you card.

However, when I pull up to the school... and my son's clothes are missing.... I start ticking. Popping and locking like Electric Boogaloo is on... and having flashbacks... of like, the time I was 15.5 months pregnant tucking and rolling through the Old Navy Black Friday sale trying to save my life from the real crazies who were sleeping out there overnight...

...Or I think about how many hours of BS I put with at work to afford all of those $20 jackets. Or how my husband was late to work looking all over the house for that jacket and then trying to get my son to put it on...

Then there is the sad thought of him on the playground cold as hell while your child runs around in all of his clothes. Or the angry thought about me wasting my gas, money and time going to get a few more of them...

Parent, never mind my feelings. I mean, who am I to impose on your child's fashion-hook-up-ed-ness? The genius level he is to shop for, buy and launder his own clothes!  Or the Phantom Menace that lives with you so you can suggest that you have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA where the heck all those Old Navy and Gap Hoodies came from...

Santa Claus must stop by your house once a quarter!

However, you should be forewarned; I'm a little bit touched.  No, not in the Hallmark greeting card way.  In the "if you see someone peering over their steering wheel in the parking lot with a trench coat, cat eye sunglasses and a black scarf wrapped fabulously over their head staring at you" or "if you sense someone is in your bushes looking at you eat dinner" or  "keep your peripheral vision open because I might run in for the tackle at any moment" sort of way.

And I'm not mad because I spend money on quality clothing for MY CHILDREN (notice I said "MY" not "OUR") that keeps coming up missing; but for the principle that you would permanently borrow these items with no thought or regard as to the child you are stealing them from. And do it multiple times! The shame!

I see you. You've been warned and put on notice.
SECURITY!