Last week, I briefly mentioned taking Kiera dress shopping. This week, I am going to give you the scoop on dress shopping with Kiera. It’s always an experience.
Now, Kiera if you haven’t figured out by now, is a girly-girl. Don’t get me wrong, she loves to play in the mud and get dirty but she loves pink, frilly things and shopping. The child LOVES to shop. I, on the other hand, tolerate shopping for myself. I enjoy shopping for others and I get a kick out of shopping with Kiera but I have to say I am not an avid shopper.
Kiera can make shopping fun. She can wear me out but the entire time shopping with her is spent laughing.
Wednesday, when we took her dress shopping, Aaron wisely decided to sit in the car and wait. I have to take a second and brag on him. He sat in the car for over an hour while Kiera tried on dress after dress. He wins the patient daddy award.
Now, back to the dress shopping. Kiera and I entered the store and headed straight to her section. I found a couple of discount racks and began to pick through them.
“Oh, Mommy!” she exclaimed holding out a blue dress with a few sequins sewn on it. “Look at this! Let’s try this one!” She quickly handed it to me. I glanced at the size and swapped it out for her size.“Ok, what else do you see that you might want to try on?” I asked. Now, that is a dangerous question to ask the shopping diva. She began to pull out dress after dress. I went through them checking the sizes and pulling out the appropriate size. I draped the dresses over one arm and continued to look through the rack.
I am not one of those people that gets a couple of items, goes to the dressing room, tries the clothes on and goes back to locate more. I am the one who will load down the basket with everything that I think I need to try on, just so I don’t have to continually put my clothes and shoes back on.
As I looked through the rack, Kiera piped up, “What about you, Mommy? We need to find something for you!”
Never taking my eyes off the rack, I assured her that we would look for something for me to try on in a bit. Suddenly, I felt the back of my shirt being lifted off my waist. Kiera grabbed the waistband of my pants and tried to twist them down to see the size. “What size do we need to get for you?” she asked.
I quickly side stepped to remove her from my waistband and replied, “It’s ok, honey. We will look in a little bit.” I hastily distracted her with another dress.
Finally, with at least a dozen dresses draped over my arm; we headed to the back dressing room. As we passed dresses in my size, Kiera stopped me. “Oooh! Look! This is beautiful!” she squealed pointing at a salmon sleeveless dress. Not realizing that I was being set up in a trap, I agreed with her.
“You should try it on!” she exclaimed. “Please, Mommy.” I rolled my eyes and grabbed the dress in my size, hoping that by the time she was done trying on dresses she would have forgotten about it.
We made it to the dressing rooms without any other distraction. I placed the dresses on a hanger only to quickly be corrected. “We have to sort them,” she said as she spread the dresses out on the three different wall hangers.
After deliberating a moment, she grabbed the first dress that she had seen. It was a spandex-ruffled sequin dress with a short jacket. She slipped it on and I noticed that it was a little too tight. “Hmm…Baby, I don’t know about this dress,” I started to explain.
She reached for the doorknob and opened the dressing room door. “It’s ok. We have to go show my audience.” She replied as she stepped out of the dressing room and sashayed her way down to the three-way mirror. I stood off to the corner as she greeted her “audience,” which just so happened to be the three-way mirrors. She twirled and twisted this way and that. After giving her a moment with her “audience” I decided it was time to interrupt and prod her back to the dressing room.
“Ok, baby. I think that dress is just a little too tight,” I gently remarked.
The little shopping queen turned on her heels to face me. “It will be fine! I am going to lose weight tonight,” she stated matter-of-factly as she headed back to the dressing room. Oh, if only it were that easy. I followed her back and put the dress in the reject pile.
She tried on dress after dress. Each time, she had to go out to her “audience.” Sometimes she would twirl around while other times she would sing in front of the three-way mirror. It did not matter if the dress was “poking” or “scratching” her. Each dress had to go out to the “audience” for their input.
Finally, she had settled on three dresses to pick from. Even though she had three to choose from, she still had to try on the last dress. She slipped it on and made her way out to the “audience.” Before she reached them, she remembered, “Mommy! You haven’t tried on your dress!”
I inwardly groaned. “It’s ok. I don’t have to try it on,” I said, trying to placate her.
She walked back into the dressing room and tugged at the salmon dress hanging on the wall. “Please, Mommy. Please, try it on,” she begged.
I sighed and slipped my shirt off and slid the dress on. Much to my dismay, I realized I had put the dress on backwards and the security tag rested directly beneath my chin. But, even backwards, I could tell it was not the dress for me.
“Oops! I put it on backwards,” I laughingly told Kiera.
“It’s ok,” she replied as she opened the dressing room door. “Let’s go show our audience.”
Now, it’s one thing for me to see myself in a horrendous dress that is also on backwards, but it’s a whole other thing for me to parade out in the dressing room hallway where anyone could walk by and see me. “Umm… no… It’s ok. I’m good, baby.”
There was absolutely no way that I was going to walk out into that dressing room hallway and risk someone seeing me in the backwards, horribly fitting dress.
Standing in the dressing room hallway, Kiera turned to face me. “Mommy! Come on!” she pleaded. “Please! I am your daughter!”
Ugh. I covered the security tag with my hand and followed Kiera to “our audience.”
She stood to the side of the mirrors, waved her hand toward me and announced proudly, “Introducing my Mommy!”
It was at that moment, I realized I didn’t care how horrible I looked in the backwards dress. I graciously acknowledged my introduction and stepped in front of the mirrors, even taking a moment to do a spin of my own.
Kiera beamed at me and I grinned back. She then leaned sideways to the “audience” and whispered, “Yes, she does have her dress on backwards. Sshh… don’t tell her. It’s ok. She is my Mom.”
And so it begins, the life long struggle of not always being the coolest but always being the Mom she loves.
