Crying in Target

Seemed simple enough.  My one and only girl, Tatum, needs a dress because she one of the key kids in the Christmas pageant at church.  She will also wear the dress to the Daddy/Daughter dance.  Very exciting.  This was so  very easy before, find something pretty and poofy and velvety and she will love it.  Not this year, something had changed.  My little girl is ten and apparently that is the age when they won't wear poofy.  Or velvety or anything you or I might have in mind.  My daughter, my mother-in-law and myself go off to do a quick shopping trip yesterday.  Simple.....dress, tights, shoes, maybe some jewelry.  We head off to Target because quite frankly, they have a nice variety of Christmas dresses that will not break the bank.  I cannot pay $100.00 for a dress to be worn maybe three times, it would kill me and my checkbook.  

We hit Target, Sunday afternoon, busy, but not crazy.  Head over to the Christmas dress section.  I pull out a gorgeous dress......too poofy at the bottom.  "I don't want anything poofy," says Tatum.  That nixed out every dress on the rack.  We went all over that department, skirts, sweaters....we went to the junior department, nothing.  Back to the little girl department, she finds it, a plain brown sweater dress.  It becomes all she wants.  Brown.  Brown.  It is brown, not a sparkle on it, not another color on it.  She wants brown tights to match, brown shoes, all that stuff.  Brown.  The color of dirt.  As I try in vain to get her to look at something in at least a pink or blue, she starts to cry.  I tell her she can have it, we will get some tights with polka dots in bright colors and pull the pink out for accessories.  Brown tights, polka dots, brown and pink plaid shoes (Hanna Montana shoes) and a pink headband.  Cute little necklace with a pink star, some earrings to match.  Brown, I cannot fathom it.

That is not the funny part.  I call my mother for some sympathy.  She is in hysterics.  I guess I was the same way, had to have my own way when it came to fashion, but I started in first grade.  My mother made me a blue gingham dress complete with sun bonnet for Easter.   Think Little House on the Prairie.  No I am not joking.  Little House came out that year on television and everyone was obsessed.  Think Holly Hobbie dolls.  That is what she made me wear.  To get the complete picture, you have to imagine the home perm in my hair (Orphan Annie had nothing on my blonde curls).  I looked hideous.  Seriously.  But........I got my picture in the local paper next to my first grade Easter project, cotton ball bunny on paper plate.  So my mother will throw in my face for the rest of my life.

Since sharing my story, I have heard of every kind of kid insisting on wearing all kinds of things because they "had" to wear it or they would die.  Weird.  I guess my point is, let them wear what they want.  You have to pick your battles.  Crying in Target is not worth it.  If I bought the poofy dress, she would have cried when wearing it.  I would have loved it, she would have cried.  It really is about her being happy.  Besides, twenty years from now, she'll call me from Target, crying because her daughter wants a green dress, or purple or whatever.  And I will laugh and tell her about the brown dress.  Oh well, life goes on.  

God bless you and yours.