In the Whole Wide World

In this whole wide world, there is only one of me. I know some of you out there are sighing in relief....could you imagine TWO of me?? Pretty frightening, I know.
Yet, in this big wide world we constantly conform. We wear what the ads tell us to wear.. We buy the "right" food. We do our hair just so. We essentially become lemmings. And do you know what lemmings do? They follow eachother off cliffs. And DIE! I do NOT want to be a lemming.
Having 6 daughters, I have insight into what girls think. Being a girl myself didn't help at all. All 6 of our daughters are so very different. They all having different levels of conformity. For one girl, the fact that she wears clothes is as lemming-ish as she gets. Otherwise it's all stripy tights and shorts and hats. Another girl doesn't consider herself a rodent. But she is. She always has been. She's the one who wants what's advertised. She wants to be "that" girl and wear "those" clothes. We always knew what to get her for birthdays and Christmas. Whatever was popular and in the moment. The little girls are still developing, still learning. I am teaching them not to conform.
I will admit that in our household we don't care. We like pictures of zombie princesses. We don't care if the girls go as "dead" prom queens for Halloween. We don't care if they see pictures of art from the renaissance period. We don't care if they wear mismatched socks and mismatched earrings. We like skeletons. We like monster dolls. We don't care if they wear spider hats to church and dress as superheros. Life is fleeting, quickly moving. If we care about all those little things we miss the HUGE things. If we spend all our time worrying about conforming, worrying about other people and what they think, we miss the FUN. I would rather have our daughters remember when we had a water fight in the house than remember our house was perfect. I want them to remember "when spiders came to play". (see picture album of same name on facebook)
In this whole wide world, we forget the important things. We concern ourselves with stuff that is inconsequential. Things that won't matter tomorrow. I say use the good plates. If one gets broken, it's OKAY. There is nothing more important than family. I say write on the windows with washable marker. Key word is washable and it keeps kids busy. Even teens. Take baths in colored water, throw impromptu parties and color your hair....a "fun" color. Stop conforming, world! God created YOU to be YOU not to be the lady next door. Don't be a lemming. There are enough of them in this whole wide world.

If you guess correctly who the 2 girls are, I will give you candy.
ps.....don't go off the cliff, the lemmings are liars.