Guest Blog: White Wedding

Making It Work Mom is the guest for today. Enjoy!!

When I got The Drama Mama's emailing telling me that I was the Scoop of the Week I was thrilled.  And then I saw the prompt she wanted me to write about. 

White. 

I was stumped.

So I asked my husband.

"White?  Like the color?  How do you write about a color?  I don't get it."

Yah, he wasn't so much help.  Moving on...

I kept mulling over the prompt for the next few days and honestly the thing I kept on coming back to was my wedding day and my big WHITE dress.

It is probably the only time in my life that I wore a white dress.  Not because I am not pure and wholesome (of course I am), but because I am sloppy and always end up spilling things on myself.

My wedding day was one of the best days of my life.  Not because I had planned the most marvelous wedding ever and everything went off without a hitch (HA!), but because it was the day that I started my new life.  My new life as part of a couple and then eventually as the matriarch (yes I am feeling all 1980's Dallas) of my own family. 

It was a good day.

Recently my girls (11 and 5) became interested in the TLC shows Say Yes to the Dress and 4 Weddings. 

We would sit together all cuddled up on the couch and comment about the different dresses and weddings. 

We would decide what dresses we liked best and discuss how crazy some brides were.  We eventually broke out my wedding album and spent an hour or so looking through the pictures.  I think it was hard for them to imagine Momma and Daddy without kids.

I started mulling over the idea of getting my own wedding dress out to show them.  They had only ever been to one wedding and at that wedding the bride did not wear a traditional white dress.  They had never seen a wedding dress for real, for real. 

Now there was no chance that I was going to fit into my wedding dress.  Those days are long gone.

*sigh*

3 kids and 13 years will do that to you.

But I could take it out of it's box where it had been "preserved" (I don't think that really means any more than putting it in a sealed box with some tissue paper around it) and let the girls see and touch it.  It would be a fun girl's thing.

I picked a winter Sunday afternoon where we had nothing going on and the weather was bitterly cold and announced to the girls that "today we would look at my wedding dress".

Ahem...

Let's try again.

"Today we would look at my wedding dress!"

Their enthusiasm was a little overwhelming.

But I pushed on.  I knew they were going to love my dress.  I had no doubts.

So I gathered my two girls around me with the box lying sealed on the bed and started opening the box.  It was time for the big unveil.

I took the dress out of the box, a big goofy grin spreading across my face as I remembered how beautiful I felt that day.

I laid the dress across my bed admiring its sheer loveliness.  I turned to look at my girls expecting to see the same look of awe in their faces.

Instead I turned to see faces with turned up lips and squinty eyes.

"You wore that."  From my 11 year old who will always tell it like it is.

"Yes.  I love it.  You don't like it.  Look at the all the bling and the beautiful train.  You don't think it's beautiful?"  A little desperation and disbelief may have been sneaking into my voice.

And my 11 year old probably sensing I was one wrong comment away from a complete meltdown tried to backtrack a little. 

"I like it.  It's just the sleeves, and the train, and I don't know.  I don't think it is my style."  She sighed.

I sighed.

"That's okay.  Everyone has different styles."  That is me trying to be the bigger person even when I am bitterly disappointed.

My five year old pipes in.  "I love it!" and gives me a big hug.

I sigh again.  I know she doesn't mean it.  My wedding dress is definitely not her style.

So I told my girls they could go.  They practically ran out of the room.  And I started packing up my beautiful white wedding dress alone.

I tried to tell myself it didn't matter if my girls didn't' like my wedding dress.  After all it was just a dress.  The dress was just a symbol of a day that changed my life for better. 

But that didn't really improve my mood.

So instead I consoled myself by insisting that they were too young to appreciate the absolute fabulousness of my dress.  I taped the box back up and decided that I would try again in 5 years.  Surely they would get the beauty of my dress then.

Right?

BSOW: A Glimmer of Hope

Today I'm sharing the ice cream with another mother who has been there. She's tackling the horrors of puberty. Think soccer moms have it bad? She'll teach you a thing or two about hockey moms. She's holding down the trenches in the face of tweenhood. She's in the know on sibling rivalry. She's been given the low down on her mommy coolness factor. She simply doesn't do hugs.


She keeps "life in the fast lane. A working mom to three busy children whom are navigating their way through tweenhood, boyhood, and preschool." She claims that if she didn't laugh, she would probably cry.


So, exactly who is this super fabulous Scoop of the Week? It's none other than Heather, the Making It Work Mom!!








I asked Heather if she could have lunch with anyone, who would it be and why? Her beautiful answer is below:

If I could have lunch with anyone I would fast forward 15 years and have lunch with my oldest daughter.  She would be 26.  I wouldn't need to know all the nitty gritty details of her life.  I certainly want some things to be a surprise.  Like I don't want to know if she has children or is married or really even where she lives.  I would like for some things to be surprises.

Maybe we don't even need a full lunch, a quick coffee might do the trick.  We could just talk shoes and about the latest person to be voted off Big Brother.

I need to know that we can have a conversation.

I need to know that the parenting I am doing now, while she is 11, is actually going to work. 

I need to know that I am not messing her up too much. 

I need to know that even though she may roll her eyes at me, fuss about how mean I am, and stomp out after our conversations more times than I can count we will be okay. 

I need to know that at 26 she feels like she can lean on me and that I, at 53, will feel connected enough to her to be confident and supportive of all her endeavors.

It is hard parenting a tween and more often than not I really feel like I am blowing it. 

If I could just have a glimpse into the future and know that my tween is not going to remain bitter, spiteful, and moody. 

*sigh*

If I could just be reassured that there is the slightest chance that in the future my every word might not annoy her.

*sigh*

Just a little itty bitty glimmer of hope would be fantastic.

Have a great weekend, y'all. Don't forget to stop by My Write Side and catch up on your reading. There are new excerpts to all three of my serials over there, plus a creepy camera and a talking shoe.
 

Heather holds down the poop on Monday, so please make sure to stop back by and show her some love.