How To Dress For the Attention You Probably Won't Get

I know you don't care, but this is how you do pretty shoes.

           A couple of weeks ago, Chris and I spent a day home from school and work babysitting a friend’s 3-year-old son. Despite the fact that he is three years her junior, Chris shot out of bed that morning and informed me she was going to wear a dress because she “wanted to look nice for Landon.” I know it’s fruitless to argue with her when she has the perfect outfit designed in her head - snowboots in August and tank tops at Christmas Eve dinner are the norm if she is out to impress someone.

Dressing up. As usual.

I texted my friend with the news that my daughter was already honing her skills of dressing for young men who probably won’t even notice. I hope Chris is prepared for the future of agonizing over her closet for the perfect date-night outfit when pretty much anything, including hole-ly sweatpants, is as good as the next thing.

I don’t really think it is the fault of the male sex that they don’t notice our attire, no matter how many sequins my mother thinks are necessary. Fortunately clothes aren’t the most important thing to everybody on the planet, especially boys who may only realize they’re wearing clothes when their mothers are yelling at them for covering them with dirt and holes.

I do believe, though, that for some girls an obsession with fashion is ingrained in our DNA. It’s possible Chris caught the fashion bug from me. But although I do like to clean myself up now and then I’ve never been known as the snappiest dresser on the planet. In Chris’ case, I believe her desire to dress up is only part Disney Channel advertising influence, and a larger part genetics.

I distinctly remember my niece Riley when she was about Chris’ age coming for a visit and talking me into taking her and my nephew shopping. While my nephew gravitated instantly towards a Spider Man t-shirt and shorts that could take a bit of rough-housing, my niece instead begged for the frilliest dress in the store. I tried to steer her towards a “play” outfit, but much like Chris my niece was able to hypnotize me with glitter until I whipped out my wallet and bought her that stinking dress.

Frilly skirt and glittery shoes and
you will get a high-wattage smile.

Once the fabric slipped over her head, Riley proceeded to twirl in front of everyone in the house and asked, “Don’t I look pretty?” Of course, everyone agreed. How could one not when it comes to a six-year-old in a fancy dress that lights up her face?

Well I could. Kind of.

When the “Don’t I look pretty?” question was asked of me, I stared Riley straight in her eyes and replied, “You look very smart.”

Crickets chirped in the background and her eyes rolled so high they nearly saw the back of her hairdo. Then my niece turned on her heels (the highest kid heels I could stand to purchase, of course) and moved on to the next adult who would fulfill her ego by telling her that her dress was nearly as beautiful as her.

With the right clothes, I will always look this cute.

I sigh every time my daughter asks me the same question. I sigh because I know that no matter how much I want to instill in her a self-confidence that doesn’t rely on a dress size or clear skin or flowing golden hair, shopping will drive those things far from her mind. She may not want to turn into a simpering idiot every time a cute boy comes around, but I can almost guarantee she will run to her room and throw on a more attractive outfit if she sees that cute boy nearby.

So back to Landon.

When he and his mother entered our house a couple of weeks ago, Chris could barely contain her excitement at showing off her new Hello Kitty dress. She preened in her chair at the breakfast table and batted her eyes as she asked him, “Do you like my dress?”

True to form, Landon chewed his pancakes thoughtfully as he looked her up and down. Then quietly came the answer, “Can we go to the park?”

What can you expect from a 3-year-old? Or I guess any man?

Don’t worry, Chris didn’t seem disappointed. She will just wear a more glittery dress next time.

The ultimate dress-up.

Get to Work!

Finally earning her keep.

           Chris was hit with the enterprise bug this weekend. According to her father, she had the brilliant idea that she would make bracelets and sell them to strangers passing by on the streets. She set to work feverishly creating a cardboard billboard and cut strings for 15 bracelets, but inevitably she ran out of steam and finished only two of the masterpieces. After all, ‘Drake and Josh’ was on Netflix.

            You know how the rest of the story goes. The materials will sit for months, maybe even forever, until someone gets disgusted and throws it all away. That’s when Chris will throw herself on the ground and declare she could have been a bazillionaire if only evil, lazy adults didn't stand in her way.

            I suspect her enterprising spirit was awakened last week when Chris’ school decided to have a “Coins for Turkeys” fundraiser in which they asked students to bring in money to help buy Thanksgiving turkeys for the needy. True to her roots, Chris decided everybody needed food for the holidays and went about a quest to find as many coins as possible to donate.

Someday Mommy can retire while Chris
actually earns allowance for something other
than just being cute.

Since most of the coins from the bottom of my purse soon end up in her piggy bank, it was a no-brainer for her to donate her own money for the cause. But problems soon identified themselves when she realized if she donated all her hard-earned allowance, she would have no funds left for much-needed toy shopping.

It’s a conundrum for an only child who has spent most of her life having everything handed to her. It’s a fine line we walk in giving her all the things we always wished for as a child, and trying to teach her about compassion, independence and the value of manual labor. 

Although her father and I have talked extensively about the fact that we want her to have a job as a teenager so she can learn to save and pay for the things she really wants, this past weekend has me thinking a lot about the logistics of the whole thing. City life is vastly different than where he and I grew up as teenagers and in what is technically a completely different century.

She can’t walk home late at night like I did after a shift at the pizza restaurant, despite the fact that she is certain she will karate chop anyone who tries to hurt her. Mind you, this feat will be attained without one single karate lesson because she’s just that good. But in a big, bad city sometimes it’s not good for young girls to walk alone at any time of the day, even if you are a ninja in your own mind. And forget about a bus in the middle of the night – you know what kind of people are on the bus at midnight! (Haven’t you learned yet that I’m a continual stereotyper?)

So this leads us to either getting off the couch at very inconvenient times to deal with Chris’ work schedule in order to teach her about the value of promptness, or buying her a car of her own. Somehow I think this defeats the purpose of getting a job in the first place.

I don’t know why I’m so focused on it all right now since we have a good 8 to 10 years before it all becomes a serious issue, but pretty soon she’ll age out of the “ask Santa for it” stage and move into the “you will have to save up your allowance for it if you want it that bad” stage. Right now she only earns a dime every time she remembers to feed and water the dogs - which let me tell you must be supplemented or we’d be on a first-name basis with animal cruelty police. This doesn’t cut it anymore past the Coins for Turkey’s stage because there’s nothing left over for fun.

Chris is slowly starting to realize that just because they feel heavier and you have more of them in your hand, nickels aren’t necessarily as great as quarters or even dollars. Already it’s turning into a negotiation to fork out more of the real, cold, hard cash for chores she has to be nagged incessantly to perform.

I promise I didn't make her do this. She was one
of those weird babies who liked to clean.

Sometimes even when she does scrimp and save, the money mysteriously disappears. Sometimes it’s stuck at the bottom of the gumball machine with gumballs that are probably 18 months old. Sometimes I’m pretty sure the tooth fairy has to “borrow” funds from it whenever Chris loses a tooth because she hasn’t had time to go to the bank either and isn’t it all about the excitement of the dollar, not where that dollar has come from? That’s what I tell myself at 3 a.m.

The lack of funds is why, I suspect, that Chris has decided she needs enter the jewelry-making business. Her crudely-made beads on a string come at the low, low cost of $1 each. And the overhead, I’m certain, was covered by Daddy who was happy to have his kid involved in a craft that lasted all afternoon long. So it’s all pure profit!

Now the problem is that she assumes the world will be clamoring to beat down her door for the pleasure of owning one of her priceless designs. I asked her if she would be sad if no one that she asked wanted to buy what she was selling. After all, think how many people ask us outside the grocery store if we want to buy something and sometimes even when we do want it, we still have to say no.

Chris looked at me incredulously.

“Why wouldn’t my friends and family and everyone who knows me want to buy one of these? They are awesome!” she said.

Spoken like a true spoiled only child.

If you add feet, it looks like you have more money.

Yay! I'm not an embarrassment!

To 'bee' honest, Chris is currently excited about our theme Halloween.

            The back of the package of striped Halloween tights reads, “One size fits all.” I’m here to tell you this is not true. One size does not fit all – unless your all is a size 6.

            Nevertheless, I struggled and strained and mostly sweated trying to pull those lying tights on to ready myself for Chris’ school’s “Fall Spooktacular” the other night. And let me tell you, when you’re sweating, those tights have an even more remote chance of truly becoming ‘one size fits all’.

            I have to admit, I said a few bad words while trying to dress that night. Then I threw the stupid tights across the stupid room and yelled that I might as well just wear stupid regular clothes if I had to go to this stupid Halloween party.

            You would have thought I casually mentioned that I was going to blow up a small country. The outcry was immediate, and I have to say a little flattering.

            “Nooooooo!” Chris cried in horror. “You HAVE to wear your costume! I already told all my friends that you are the queen! They’ll think I’m a liar!”

            Yes, I was the Queen Bee for Halloween this year. Chris was my little honey bee and the two dogs were our little worker bees. Grandma kept us all in line as our beekeeper.

            But I digress.

Right now Chris is thrilled this photo is on my desk at work.

The point is that my child was incredibly upset at the thought that I might don regular, everyday, normal clothes in front of her peers. Get it? She was not upset that I was wearing a costume in public. She was upset that I might NOT wear a costume.

            Somehow I pictured this inevitable conversation about my wardrobe going in a completely different direction. So far, miraculously, Chris does not appear to be embarrassed by me and my sometimes unconventional clothing choices – like the animal print my brother swears covers nearly half my closet. Like most six-year-olds Chris proudly points out, “That’s my mom” to strangers from across a crowded room. Even the good-looking strangers she meets on days when I have big pimples and a bloated stomach.

            Almost on a daily basis she begs me to allow her to invite her friends over. Really! She doesn’t even cringe that I’m ‘so lame’ when I tell her friends they can help decorate cookies or when I try to snap pictures of them playing Barbies together.

She eagerly points out the family pictures of us all in Renaissance Festival gear instead of ushering them immediately to her room. She even tells her unsuspecting guests excitedly that said room was decorated in surprise for her and isn’t it sooooooo beautiful? Not that isn’t it soooooooo dumb and what were her parents thinking?

            Not long ago, I had to laugh as I discovered Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time” on Chris’ Disney CD that she forces me to listen to in the car pretty much every time we leave the driveway. I turned up the stereo and sang along to all the words I remembered a friend singing back in our single days when we regularly did karaoke. I refrained from the dance moves ol’ Britney did in her ground-breaking video – partly because I didn’t have the proper space in the front seat of the car and partly because I’m not smooth enough to move that way anyway.

I am THIS cool right now. 

            But the point is, Chris didn’t beg me to turn down the stereo or try to shrink down in her car booster seat at the thought that neighboring drivers might catch a glimpse of me. And she didn’t think my uncool was showing either! I swear her voice was tinged with awe when she asked how I knew the words to that song and could I teach them to her.

            It’s amazing to me because I’m currently so old that I don’t recall the early days of my childhood when I might have actually been proud of my family. I only remember the days when I wished to sink directly into the floor when encountering a fellow family member and didn’t know most of my friends were equally ashamed of their own families.

Right now, Chris doesn’t seem to care that I’m not the youngest or thinnest mother on the block. Right now, she doesn’t seem bothered by our familial quirks and eccentricities that make us, uhhh, unique. Right now, Chris is so thrilled by visits from her cousin even that she told me it makes her shy and she has to hide behind my butt.  

I’m not naive enough to think this admiration of her extended family will continue forever. One day, we are going to wake up and Chris will sneer at my comfy jammies and roll her eyes in disgust at my annoying habit of decorating the downstairs bathroom in holiday themes. There will come a day when she will swear up and down to perfect strangers that she has no idea who that old lady is waving from her car as I call out to her and wipe away a tear of nostalgia for the old days when I was a goddess in her eyes.

In light of the crazy skeletons in our closet, I anticipate that Chris’ opinion of me is going to be changing very soon. I know this like I know that when she glimpses me during her dance recital she will scream ‘Mommy!’ and knock down three other children while running to hug me as if I’m Justin Bieber. Yeah, I’m that cool right now.

So for now, I will struggle with stupid Halloween tights because that’s what Chris wants and she is still thrilled that someone who loves her showed up to represent.

When the day comes that she no longer wants to admit I gave birth to her and that physically she can’t deny our lineage, I will still struggle to wear those stupid Halloween tights because that’s when it will become fun for me. I’m already planning my wardrobe for maximum embarrassment.

The day will come when you will wonder why I can't take a normal picture. Or BE normal.