Yesterday, I went with my daughter to pick out a Prom gown. We traveled to Frederick to a shop that guaranteed that they would not sell the same gown to anyone who is in the same school as you to hopefully negate the chance of two girls with the same gown.
After picking through their selection of gowns, we took our choices to the dressing room, where there were 5 other moms with their daughters, all doing the same thing. The daughters were wriggling into and out of gowns, shyly peeking from behind the curtains to see if mom could zip them up or get her approval on the way it fit. Some were grumbling because they were still looking for *the* dress and some were almost giddy at playing dress up. The shop owner and her assistants all fluttered around taking away what they called, “no goods” and bringing girls new gowns to try. The Moms were all patiently waiting to be called for help, most of them rolling their eyes and smiling at each other as if we were all part of a club.
Liberty is a curvy 5 foot 2 inches and most gowns will need to visit a seamstress to be hemmed for her, so she’s never really comfortable with the way the dress falls. We had narrowed our choices down to one royal blue strapless gown and one golden gown with rhinestones and ruching. While waiting for the shopkeeper to answer a question about alterations that would be our deciding factor, Libby watched the girl in the dressing room next to us try on just about every gown she had chosen, finally trying to make a choice between an orange beaded gown and the same golden gown we were considering. I couldn’t figure out why my daughter had suddenly become quiet, withdrawn and sullen until she mumbled that she thought the other girl looked better in the golden gown than she did. This girl was at least 5 foot 10, needed no hemming for any gown she put on, was lithe with little curve and you could see my baby comparing herself to this other girl. My comment of, “It doesn’t look better, just different.” didn’t seem to make her feel any better. We ended up with the blue gown, which looks stunning on her, but she later said she chose it because she couldn’t get the vision of the other girl in her gown out of her head!
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Frank, Sr. and Frank, Jr. were busy cyber shopping the Sears site for Craftsman tools. Jr. just started a job in which he needs to have his own tools, but wanted Sr. to help him choose what was necessary. After deciding which kit looked to be the best, they ordered the tools and then went to Sears to pick up the order and to also choose a few other needed items. Two hours later, my husband came home with a carrot cake, a thank you gift from my son and his girlfriend. (mmmm carrot cake)
What a lovely way to have spent our Saturday afternoon with our children.
Snippets and Tidbits 