Meredith from the hilarious Does This Match? is taking over today. I am lucky to know Meredith in real life, but we live 3000 miles away from each other, which means she makes me laugh every day on Facebook, and once a year in person. I know you’ll love her as much as I do!

After recently registering S for kindergarten, I started to worry about my little sparkle-loving fish moving into a larger pond. The guilt and questions of whether I have prepared her enough started to set in shortly after we got home. How is she going to get along with the other kids? I haven’t been reading to her enough. Will someone help her put the straw in her Capri Sun at lunch? Her teacher might not think it is so cute that S liberally interjects ghetto speak to her daily vocabulary (Oh no you di’ant! Oh yes you do!), I should really work on that.

Actually, to be honest, some of the guilt and questions started to bog me down before I was done filling out the mountain of a registration packet. Mostly when it came to the part asking about how she likes to learn, how she interacts with others, and about her emotional well-being.

Whoa! Maybe I am not taking this whole kindergarten thing as seriously as I need to. Have I already sent her down the wrong path in education and life skills? Her older sister has made it to second grade without any red flags being raised by teachers or administrators. Am I missing something?

The guilt and questions just kept coming. Should I have had her watch more Baby Einstein videos instead of Elmo as a toddler? What if all the other kids are fluent in another language and her only other language is Dora Spanglish? Shit! I am never making PTA mom of the year. Shit! Shit! What if she says a swear word at school? I really need to watch my language around her more. I should probably remind her to not use the bathroom with the door open.

I am going to drive myself crazy. What am I saying? I AM crazy.

No. I am not. She is 5. She believes that every single person she meets loves her. She believes that every single person she encounters wants to hear all about her favorite cousin, pet dog, or newest stuffed animal. The first day of school she will most likely choose to wear leopard print stretch pants with a green and white striped shirt while pairing the ever-present Hello Kitty socks and gold sparkle shoes, and topping it off with a pink giraffe print headband. For the love of god, she believes in unicorns.

This is okay though since these are all things that 5 year olds do, right???

When Meredith isn’t avoiding folding the laundry or honking behind people in the carpool lane you can find her on Facebook sharing her 5 year old’s daily clothing choices and sassy commentary. If you have a great example of mismatched perfection, share it with her Facebook page DoesThisMatch?

[Tweet “One mom’s feelings about sending her little fish into the big pond of kindergarten. @doesthismatch”]