A HUGE fashion tragedy..............

For the past several days my youngest has been waging a strong campaign regarding the need for a new prom dress even though there are several perfectly good (never been worn) dresses hanging in the downstairs closet. "This is my SENIOR prom. I have been doing as Dave says, living as no one else so that tomorrow I can live like no one else, saving every dime I earn for college and I think that tomorrow is close enough today." She even played the, "You just went on vacation even though Dave says you should not have." (Does no one get that IT IS A BUSINESS EXPENSE besides me?) Last night she had the night off work so after dinner we went "looking" for the perfect dress.

She tried on a vast assortment of dresses ALL of which I got the pleasure of hanging back up, in between taking pictures of all angle of each and every dress for later comparison. Somehow I must have slacked on teaching the girl the correct way to put on a dress. She prefers the step in and wiggle up the hip method, and each time I would insist that she perform the over the head method she would end up in a crouched position on the floor, the dress all in a bunch over her head, hollering "Help me! Then of course this would make us laugh and laughing in no way was beneficial in releasing her from her taffeta/lace/sequined prisons. In the end she narrowed it down to two dresses and off we headed with the pictures, the plan being for her to sleep on it and make the final decision in the morning.

On the way home I dropped her off at Subway where her boyfriend was working so she could get his opinion, and she called one of her friends to have her come to subway and put in her two cents worth. About an hour and a half later, she comes home in tears and says, "How could the best night ever turn into the worse night ever in such a short time?" Poor thing...

As it turns out, the friend that came to see the pictures of the dresses had tried on one of them and was in love it. This dress just happen to be the one that my youngest was most leaning towards getting. Her friend told her," You can't get that one because I want it." Don't any of you dare say," what is the big deal about that?" before remembering back to your high school years. Being the great kid that she is, my youngest said, "It is not worth all the drama to go ahead and get the dress, but I so wanted that one." We talked a little more about some options, and then got on the net and started looking for different dresses. About a half hour later my youngest said, "I knew you would make me feel better. You're miracle mom." (And of course I have to share that tidbit with all of you.) Another half hour and we had found a couple of dresses that she liked even better than the original dress in a store close to our home. (my) Mister is going to come home from work early today so we can go check them out and she can try them on, and we will go from there.

This experience is just one more example of what a great kid I have raised, the kind of example that makes me wonder (as I always do) what it is that I did right/what I did right to deserve such a great kid? Maybe in the scheme of things this isn't a big deal, but last night to her it was EVERYTHING. In my opinion she would have been a little justified to have a hissy fit, say mean things about her friend, or decide to buy the dress anyway. Instead she did the noble thing, the right thing, the loving thing, and in the process she made me feel like a great mom for letting me help her to feel better. What a kid. What a blessing.