Dressin' Up

We just celebrated Easter Sunday. It was so cute to see the little kids at church in all their Easter finery. A baby boy who couldn't walk yet, looked like a miniature man in a suit and tie. The look on his face told me he couldn't wait to get home and out of that torture suit.

Then along came the cutest little girl in her brand new Easter dress. She had a huge bow in her hair that was almost as big as her head. How she kept her head in an upright position, is beyond me. I thought that ginormous bow might topple her over at any second.

There was so much sweetness in the air, I could feel a cavity forming and I hadn't even had a bite of a chocolate bunny yet. I miss those days of dressing my girls up, especially at Easter time. Now that Amber and Kayla are grown, they frown at me pinning them to the ground to put a big bow in their hair.

When the girls were little, I had one who loved to get dressed up, and one who thought getting dressed up was about as much fun as running head first into a tree.

By the time Kayla was three years old, she was so excited about clothes, she would choose her outfit and lay it out for the next day. She loved dresses and would pick her socks and hair bow to match. She was quite the fashion statement.

Kayla would get dressed, I would fix her hair, and then she would spend the rest of the time looking in the mirror, smiling and admiring herself. She was my little diva.

Then it was Amber's turn...

Amber could have cared less about what she was wearing. If her clothes didn't itch or hurt, she was good with it. I learned never to send Amber to pick out her clothes because it was a shocking surprise every time she dressed herself.

Matching an outfit together was not a skill Amber was born with. It didn't matter if the colors clashed or the prints made your eyes cross, Amber was perfectly happy with her choice. She had clothes on, she was no longer naked, and wasn't that the point? She was dressed and that's all that mattered.

Kayla without even trying, could play outside all day and come back in with her clothes still clean and every hair still in place. Amber had a totally different experience.

After Amber would get dressed, I would tell her to wait right there and don't move while I went to get something. In a matter of minutes I would come back, and Amber while still in the same spot, didn't quite look like she did when I left her. 

In the blink of an eye, Amber's clothes would be wrinkled and  there would be a dirty stain that would inexplicably appear out of nowhere. Her hair would go from being in a neat pony tail, to looking like it had been attacked with a flying an egg beater.

I would find her all disheveled, but still smiling like she had never moved a muscle. I never did figure out how she could get messed up in a blink of an eye. I think her body had some sort of magnetic pull that attracted dirt floating in the atmosphere. She didn't go find dirt, it found her. 

Amber and Kayla look back at old photos and complain about their clothes and their hair. "Mom! What were you thinking, dressing us like that?" ... "Muuutherrrr.... puleeese!" Back in the "old days", they had what was in style and cute for little girls at the time.

I can't wait until Amber and Kayla have their own babies. I'm going to buy the biggest, prettiest hair bow I can find... and I might even buy one for the baby girl too.