high school reunion

the preschool i teach at is an upper-middle (and up) class preschool. because it is half day only, working moms need not apply. so any children who are there have parents who can afford to have at least one spouse stay at home (or, in a very few cases, work from home). they usually live close by (unlike those of us commuting from leander :), in riverplace or canyon creek or deer creek or cypress, and wear trendy workout clothes to drop their kiddos off in the morning and trendy day clothes to pick them up in the afternoon. many of them have $200 haircuts. i see in them the public school cheerleaders and student body presidents of years gone by; most of them are married to doctors and lawyers and the like. they intimidate me, at least partially because somehow i never got the hang of trendy clothing (tho my sister can pull it off beautifully) and good hair - i still wear t-shirts and jeans and flip-flops all day, and my long frizzy hair hasn't been cut in months.
can you tell i'm feeling insecure?
and some of the time, standing around at class parties and after school, i still feel like the shy junior high girl that i was - other parents talk to each other about gyms and play dates and birthday parties, and often i am just standing by silently, left out i think not intentionally but by oversight. and i'm never sure what to say to jump in.
but then as i write this i think about all of the women there who don't fit that mold. there are some great people there (some of them even wear trendy clothes :) who give love generously to their children and those around them. and i've seen even the classiest, wealthiest women cry as they drop their crying babies off, and listened to them worry about when they should get rid of the pacifier in their two-year-old's mouth. when i was teaching, i even had them ask ME when they should get rid of it. (alas, obviously i am not the one to ask. :)
i guess, in the end, motherhood is the great equalizer. we all have to deal with potty training and diapers that leak, midnight fevers and stomach bugs. and i suppose i shouldn't let it bother me when my natural shyness keeps me a little isolated in social settings; i do have good friends, even some preschool friends, and i don't need to be the center of everyone's conversation.
and judging by appearances, as i should know by now, is not the best or most accurate way to judge character.
just look at me.
;)