Mom Style - The Maxi Dress

Hi, everybody! Welcome to yet ANOTHER new section here on Crazybananas, simply titled “Mom Style” because I’m not great at thinking up post titles. Score one for me.

My style has definitely evolved in a positive way since I had kids. I mean, you can find pictures of me out there as a young mom (and even before I was pregnant) and I look just ridiculous. Actually, that’s not accurate. I looked boring. I hadn’t found my style yet, and really looked like I felt, which was pretty blah. The past few years I’ve had a blast finding who I am in terms of my personal style, and lately I’ve been getting more and more comments from people wanting to know how to stay in the fashion loop after you have kids.

Let me preface this with a short statement: I am not a stylist, fashion expert or anything of the like. I simply love color and kooky clothes. And as I work for a bunch of engineers and am married to an IT guy, most of the comments I get regarding my clothes aren’t exactly positive. Some examples?

(Whilst wearing neon green pants) Um, I can’t hear you over those pants.

(From my 87 year old uncle) What the heck are those on your feet?! Shoes? Those are crazy.

(Sporting a polka dot dress and saddle shoes) I don’t mean to offend you, but are you trying to look old?

(Wearing my favorite glasses) Whenever I see you in those, I just want to ask you a bunch of math questions.

Yeah, so trust me, I’m not over here thinking I’m a fashion queen. But I have had good comments as well, usually from the cute barista at my local coffee shop. Obviously I’m totally legit. So I figured why not start a little style section that explores how to stay fresh fashion-wise when you’re forcing a one and a half year old into his carseat.

With that (rather long) explanation, here’s our first installment of Mom Style! Woohoo!

I am actually not a maxi dress person. I’ve been told they look good on taller people, but I’m no shorty (around 5’8″) and I’ve always felt they made me look like an oompa loompa. Imagine my surprise when my good friend (and evil shopping enabler) Lane told me I absolutely had to buy this dress during a store opening party last year. I followed her advice and thank goodness, because this dress is amazing. It totally feels like you’re wearing pajamas, it’s so comfortable. And though it’s low cut, which is perfect for summer at the beach, but no so perfect for time with kids who tend to pull on your clothes at any given moment, you can just throw on a cute jean jacket and you’re ready to go!

Also, can I just say that this is a total homage to being a semi-horder. This jean jacket is from Target, circa 2002, and I refused, REFUSED, to throw it away. I knew someday it’d be back in style.

Along with the accessories listed above, I am also wearing some cute teal, criss cross sandals from the Gap and pretty tourquoise earrings, but as this was our first Mom Style photoshoot, we didn’t end up with any pictures of those particular items. It may have been due to my husband pretending he was a high fashion photographer and shooting everything he saw while telling me to work it. When I looked at the images he captured, there were approximately five of me, three of our trashcan lid, several of the ground and many of the back of Tate’s head.

Tate’s head? Yes…here’s an example.

This was the last image of me on the memory card. I imagine I will be framing this one for the husband, as I’m sure he spends a lot of time looking at this face.