Saturday, April 22, 2017

No Clothes? No Problem! The Stay-at-Home Mom's Guide to College Spring Break Fashion


Before I was a stay-at-home mom, I was a stay-up-late kind of girl. Especially when I was living in Pacific Beach, working at World Famous, and going (or not going) to school at UCSD. 

I have vague memories of Spring Break in my 20s. If I smell a kamikaze shot, images flash through my brain: Ice luges. 80s parties. Sandy bathing suits.  Late-night burritos. Phone numbers written on my arm with a sharpie. Sleeping with my clothes on. Sleeping with my clothes off.

You get the picture.

Come to think of it...this was probably just my normal life. But who’s keeping track?

Things are different now. There's always someone in my bed, but it's my husband and we've been married for 12 years. Sometimes I sleep in my clothes, but it's usually in the kids' room on the floor and someone is puking.

Ice luges are a thing of the past. Did we get brain freeze? I can't remember. Now, I'm the one sharpie-ing my number onto my kid's arms when we go to SeaWorld.

80s parties? If I'm lucky.  Late night burritos? That still happens, I'm not gonna lie.

Enter: Spring Break 2017. I'm 39 years old. My kids are eight and five. Should we go on vacation?


Let’s face it. Taking ANY sort of trip with two children is a major risk. The vacation could be awesome. Or it could SUCK BIG-TIME. If the past is any predictor of future success, I would say that most of our family vacations have been 50% shitty, 20% fun and 30% somewhere-in-between. Like, I don’t exactly want to hang myself from that giant Redwood tree we just drove through, but I wouldn’t mind if my husband drove our car off a cliff. (As long as he did it really fast, so we wouldn’t know what’s coming.)


Road to divorce.

I digress. We decided to go to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Smack during the Spring Break season. This might turn off a lot of families: sloppy teenage drinkers and fraternity pranksters, questionable poolside shenanigans and murky hot-tub water quality.  (Like, the sperm count in the Jacuzzi is higher than it is in most IVF emissions.)

And let’s not forget 20-year-old girls looking great in slutty bikinis…girls who did NOT run three miles a day and cut out carbs and practically kill themselves through starvation and almost pass out in Monday morning assembly at T-K to look great in said bikinis.

On the plus side, I reasoned our “spirited” little girls would look like ANGELS compared to these barely-legal spring breakers. Our kids wouldn’t put a dent in the chaos with their banshee wailing, sister-hitting, face-clawing, hair pulling, or downright disagreeableness. (To be fair, my 8-year-old is pretty mature, but my 5-year-old is full-on “Braveheart-at-Battle” in the body of a little girl.) 


Don't mess with her.


So, we went.

The verdict? Traveling for Spring Break as a stay-at-home mom is totally badass. Not only did I get sit by the pool all day, drinking endless Miami Vices and reading three books, but I got to witness first-hand the fun and flirty new fashion trends for the college crowd. I found it most entertaining! Check it out.

Top Spring Break 2017 Fashion Trends for the College Crowd

Let’s start with air travel.  If you’re a girl and you are boarding a plane, you are wearing jean shorts that are UP YOUR BUTT, as in your butt cheeks are CLEARLY HANGING OUT OF YOUR SHORTS.  You might even have a bruise from falling out of the Uber on the way home from the bar (See below.) You are also probably wearing a tank top with no jacket. You are trying to ignore the fact the airport is FREEZING and you have goose bumps. No, you are not cold! You’re not!




If you are feeling more demure, you are wearing skin tight, high-wasted black leggings. Preferably ones that lace up the side. You are wearing either a grey or white belly-baring tank top and either black converse or Adidas.


You have a lovely fake tan, and have spent HOURS perfecting your dirty blonde balayage hair into silky waves. “Rapunzel,” your 5-year old says.

“Yes,” you say. “But this princess has let her hair down for too many princes.”


If you are a boy, you are wearing a shirt that looks like this:

I’m not kidding.  A real human was wearing this shirt on our Alaska Airlines flight. MY EIGHT YEAR OLD CAN READ.

“Marley,” my husband says to our 8-year-old, “If you ever bring home a boy who is wearing a shirt like that, he’s going to be looking down the barrel of my gun.”

Moving on to fun looks for the pool. The most popular bathing suit trends were:

a) Cheeky bikinis




b) Super slutty Monokinis.

Let’s start with the cheeky bikinis. To be fair, most of these girls had rockin’ bodies, but thought NOTHING of the fact that, again, their ENTIRE BUTTS were hanging out of their bottoms. If you wanted, you could simply extend out an arm and wave your hand, and you could easily touch dozens of pairs of butt cheeks. It’s a wonder people didn’t try to do this. At times, I was tempted.

My husband also discovered a startling new type of monokini (Go, Ian!)…the REVERSE MONOKINI. This is basically monokini where the cleavage is actually the underboob (see underboob below.) I have no words for this new trend.






So again, the trend is bikinis or monokinis so revealing that you could actually have sex with your bathingsuits ON. Like, you could meet someone, and have sex without removing your bathing suit.  This makes my brain hurt.

And let’s face it, no look is complete without an accessory. Behold, the Cabo Bandana.



But the boys, again, couldn’t resist things like “Sex Machine” and “I Love Pussy.”  Gross. AGAIN, MY EIGHT YEAR OLD CAN READ.

Moving on to club attire. Whether you're heading out for a beach bar or a night club, the attire is the same. NO CLOTHES. Leave that bikini on. All you need to do is snap on your hot pink, sorority emblazoned fanny pack, throw on some flip flops and you’re good to go.  


No, coverups NOT acceptable and should never be worn. If you feel like you need something else on your body, stop and get a henna tattoo of your boyfriend’s fraternity ON YOUR ASS CHEEKS. Like, allow the Mexican on the beach to get all OB/Gyn on you.

I’m not kidding. Legions of girls were walking around downtown in JUST bikinis. Even at night. Why doesn’t anyone wear clothes? I don’t know. All I’m thinking is, these girls are asking to get raped! I know, I know, it’s not okay to say that. Girls are never responsible for getting raped. No means no. But I’m just sayin!

Appropriate Night Club Wear


That concludes our Spring Break style round-up. I hope you've enjoyed it!