St. Patty's

Let me start by saying that I have a lot of baggage, but I totally know that I do and I have a strong back to carry it all.  I know that I grew up differently than most of my peers, however I believe that those differences have made me a better person today.  So let me rewind to last Friday night when the girls refused to fall asleep and were getting up and out of their beds for hours.  On the last trip of manipulation, Austin stated while crying that she must remember to wear green on Monday or the teacher said she would be pinched.  Now the lucid part of my brain knows that the story it's self is too close to reality to not have some basis, however I doubt highly that the "teacher" stated this but rather one of the students.  On that particular Friday this conversation with my four year old spun me up, to her I laid her back down and told her that Monday was a long ways away and that we would talk about it again later.  But to anyone else that would listen I was upset for a multitude of reasons.  It brought back a memories of being escorted to the library during every holiday party as a kid, giving back gifts and never wearing green.  We were the odd kids, everyone knew it....and while I believe it was this fact that later enabled us to become the bullies I am sure we were, we also don't give in to peer pressure and are fine fighting the entire world if need be.  The thought of a child (much less my child) being treated differently due to what they wore that day when clearly a four year doesn't buy their clothing or even pick out what to wear on Monday's made my heart hurt.  I knew at this very moment that I was being some what irrational but as everyone continued to look at me like I was the crazy person I took the fight option of my fight or flight reactions and was reminded why my baggage was so important to me.  While I dealt with those dreadful bulling years in high school, I wouldn't have changed what those experiences turned me into.  I wanted with every bit of my soul to put Austin in pink and tell her to fight em' all...stand up for the kids that weren't wearing green and tell the kids that were that they were nothing more than followers, but alas I do not get to raise kids by myself and Joe won this battle.  Long story short here are the *new* (because they didn't have any current ones) green shirts that I had to pick up for the girls.  At least they looked super cute and apparently didn't get terrorized at preschool.