I need to show you all something that I think will give you a little insight into myself. This is a picture from my Elementary School Brownie Troupe.

Take note of all of the different types of first and second grade little girls. There are some little girls who are perfectly coiffed, some who forgot their uniform on picture day, only half are even looking at the camera, some who are clowning around in the back row, and then there is one little girl on the left hand side of the front row who is a little hard to classify. She’s not standing with the other girls, and she looks a little grumpy. Her feet aren’t even together like the other girls- she’s standing with her hip cocked to the side as if to say, “I am way too rad for this Brownie photo- my boyfriend is in New Kids on the Block”. There’s even a ketchup stain on her dress because she could never master the art of opening a ketchup packet without it spewing all over her. Her mom did try to brush her hair daily, and even stick a pretty white matching bow on her tangled nest of hair to try to nudge her back into the realm of conformity. It was clearly a losing battle. How do I know all of this, you ask?

Because that little girls is me. I’m the pure-sass rebel weirdo in the front row. And in just two short months, I am going to have a pure-sass rebel weirdo of my very own.

I hope.

Now, this is not the only picture of me like this in existence. In fact, looking back on my childhood and even into college, the photographs of me doing something “weird” greatly outweigh the normal ones.  But for reasons I can’t really explain, I’m actually proud of that. And the four of you still reading should know that, because the whole reason I even started this blog is the first place was because I was afraid I was becoming too homogenized and felt like I needed to remind the world that I’m not as average as you think I am.  Just look at that picture.

But what if my darling little girl decides that she likes being homogenized? What if she wants to be just like everyone else and do what everyone else does? Will I, the now-aged pure-sass rebel, be able to relate to her or will she seem as weird to me as I am sure I seem to everyone who knows me? What if she never understands me, and I am a constant source of embarrassment to her, even as a newborn baby? Will she be able to tell that her mom is really unlike the other moms who come to pick their babies up from the church nursery? Will she ban me from showing up to her kindergarten class because I don’t wear mom-jeans, vote straight-party republican, or EVER take her to McDonald’s? Will I get to share my collection of weirdo habits and hobbies with someone who might actually appreciate them?

I can’t answer that.

And I guess I shouldn’t answer that. Because according to what everyone tells me, I will think she’s the greatest human to ever walk the planet, even her goal is to look just like all the other humans walking the planet – even if she always has to be perfectly clean and coiffed (boring), loves math (really boring), and gets all dramatic when she feels like she is doing anything other than totally blending in (annoying). And I’m sure I will think she’s the greatest human to walk the planet. I already think she’s the greatest human to ever live in my abdomen…

So maybe my job is to be the pure-sass rebel weirdo mom, who can’t help but embarrass her daughter at every occasion. I could be really good at that. Or maybe I’ll get lucky, and I’ll have a little rebel all my own, with the same crazy nest of brown hair, a cocked hip, and who marches to the beat of a drummer that even I can’t hear. Until then, I will continue being hard to classify all by myself.