Reason #6: Pink Dresses

The sixth reason I am not crying during Grace’s senior year is pink dresses.  I am not crying because when this girl was 3 years old she absolutely refused to wear any color but pink for an entire year.  And when I say only pink, I mean only pink.  Not pink flowers.  Not pink shirt with blue jeans.  I mean ONLY PINK.  Pink flowers on a pink background with pink stems and pink centers.  Pink jeans.  Pink ribbons.  Pink feathers.  Pink lace and pink velvet.  ONLY pink.  In those early years of parenting just a few littles, I used to lay out their clothes every night before daycare.  I went to work early—before they woke up—and it was just easier for Chad to have everything at his fingertips for that fraught hour between wake ups and drop offs.  One morning I laid out a sweet little sparkly blue ladybug sweatsuit (purchased by a grandma—I knew better).  Around 7:15 that morning I got a phone call from Chad.  In a tone he might have used to warn me of an impending natural disaster or tell me that he’d been stabbed by a serial killer and might not make it through the phone call he insisted in an apocalyptic voice, “NEVER.  EVER.  Layout blue clothes for that girl again.  EVER.”  

Everyone who attended her third birthday party was required to wear pink.  Even the boys.  If I were the kind of organized mom who had tidy scrapbooks tucked away somewhere, I’d show you a picture, but you will have to take my word for it.  Her favorite book back then was Pinkalicious (still one of my all time faves).

In the intervening years, her passion for pink abated quite a bit.  But, for her last ever high school homecoming, she chose a pink dress.  Not crying.

She actually bought this dress last year.  Because she is 5 foot 10 and has a body fat percentage in the single digits, she is able to buy most of her dresses at online discount stores where the dresses cost less than a couple of coffee dates and arrive tucked into padded envelopes covered in Chinese writing.  We’ve never been the kind of mom and daughter who delight in shopping together—neither of us have much patience or passion for such a thing.  It suits us both for her to order a few non-returnable dresses online and make one work (with a figure like hers, they always work).  About a week ago I asked Grace if she needed me to take her shopping as I realized the dance was coming quickly and one drawback to overseas online dress shopping is that overnight shipping can get a bit spotty.  

“Nah,” she said casually.  “I’ll just wear the pink one.”  Not crying.

I’m also not crying that pink appeared to be a hot color this year.  Last year, I can’t recall anyone wearing this shade, but this year it just so happened that two of her closest elementary school friends also wore pink.  These two girls happen to be the ones I’ve watched grow up the most closely.  These girls have spent countless hours at my house.   In my head these spectacular seniors are raucous little girls, seat belted into my backseat while belting out Hannah Montana tunes and giggling over fart jokes.  They are not stunning young ladies who all look like supermodels (what’s up with that?) in whom the brightest of futures is already written in their beautiful, shining eyes. The fact that the three of them all chose to wear Grace’s onetime signature color is not a reason for crying, so I didn’t.  

You’ll also note that Grace was wearing Birkenstock’s with her dress for the obligatory front step photo.  I am the kind of mom who is considerably more concerned with her athletic performance than her fashion prowess, so this nod to her recent ankle injury made me very pleased indeed.  She eventually changed into heels, but because she (and her younger brother) were so annoyed by my presence and interest in their evening, I opted not to attend the spectacle of the picture taking at a local convention center.  (Don’t ask me why—I just wasn’t feeling it.  I was able to lift these beauties from Facebook and my kids' phones for which I am exactly 0% sorry).  I don’t know if it is the fact that she is my oldest, or the fact that all high school seniors grow to a place where they want as much distance as possible from their parents, but Grace finds me quite embarrassing at events such as this, and she keeps her distance from Me.  Not crying.

When I was in high school, my volleyball coach deliberately took the team to an out of town tournament on the day of the Homecoming Dance every year.  His explanation was this, “Homecoming has nothing to do with you.  It is all about football, and you are more successful and work as hard as the football team does.  We are not going to shape our schedule around an event that refuses to recognize your abilities and accomplishments.”  So homecoming to me was about trying to put on makeup in a minivan and change as fast as I could in order to not be too late to the dance.  (Luckily, Grace’s coach is a bit more accommodating).   Also, in my day, people rarely went without a date.  Because I was not particularly popular with the boys, I didn’t go to many homecoming dances.  It is so much smarter now, when the kids go with their friends and their boyfriends (if they have them) and their girlfriends (if they have them) and their frenemies (if they have them) and have a joyful time altogether, but I can’t relate and so it doesn’t resonate deeply for me. Perhaps that is why this event felt less sentimental to me than some of the others.  And yet.  The fact that Grace chose a pink dress still tugged at my mama heart just a little.  But I’m not crying.  You’re crying.