A Coastal Homecoming...

The latest dispatch from Jeanette...

Homecoming has come and gone here in North Kitsap County, but its scares and lessons remain. It has been a month since Brittney’s first semi-formal dance and I am just now mustering the courage to re-examine and write about it.

Neither Paula nor I are fans of shopping. We have gotten out of school clothes shopping with Brittney through the grace of grandma’s annual golf tournament in the Pacific North West. Paula’s Mom loves to shop and it’s a great time of bonding for Brittney and her grandmother. This year we had a close call.

Grandma canceled her trip.

Her cancellation was partly because she wanted to spend Thanksgiving with us this year, and the tournament would have had her arriving the day we closed escrow on our house.

Enter Kathy, a friend and co-worker of mine. Brittney did some volunteer work with Kathy this summer and the two of them had so much fun working together that Kathy volunteered to take Brittney school clothes shopping. They had a blast despite the fact that Brittney had used a red sharpie marker to color her hair the night before.

Luckily, the sharpie color was not so permanent when transferred from Brittney’s hair to Kathy’s car seat. And the thought that she might have made Kathy mad has, for the time being, curtailed Brittney’s sharpie color treatments.

About a week before Homecoming, Brittney started saying how lame the dance would be. And that she did not want to go. This admission seemed puzzling. But on a day off from school she also asked to go to work with me to help Kathy.

I put two and two together….Brittney had no dress and she really wanted to hit Kathy up for another shopping trip. Knowing that Kathy is pursuing her Masters degree and is overwhelmed with all that entails…the task fell to Paula and Me.

Now, I really thought this should be a Mother daughter bounding time. I tried to convince Paula that it would be so good for the two of them to spend the quality time together. After all, I’ve had a summer of creek wading and aquatic bug identification time with Brittney. Hours of time spent holding hands to ford creeks, teaching her to read water and locate trout.

Inevitably, I will take her shopping for waders next spring. So, this should be Paula and Brittney time!

I even pulled out the “I have so much to do card”. We’d just moved from our rental home and I still had some clean up I wanted to get done before the walk through with the property manager.

Nope. Paula wasn’t going to let me get out of it. She made it crystal clear that if she had to go shopping…I had to go shopping.

The alarm was set for early Sunday morning. And after a breakfast at McDonald’s we were off.

Now Brittney’s “style” is what I would call Vanilla Goth.

Not so much for the pasty white face and heavy eyeliner look. But she defiantly likes to wear black. And if they are not clunky skater shoes…well they are just not cool.

It took us some time but finally about 5 dresses were picked out. It was time to go try them on. I had visions of a bathing suit shopping trip Tim got to be apart of several years ago. Brittney locked in a dressing room, flinging the rejects over the walls of the dressing booth, high into the air, only to land in a heap back on the sales floor of an Oldtown, Idaho Ben Franklin Store.

I remain haunted by the repeated pages, “customer service to the dressing rooms”; Paula, rethinking the whole adoption thing; Tim looking at hot wheels in the far corner of the store trying not to laugh too hard. I’m still surprised Tim was ever able to show his face again in that Ben Franklin. I think Paula, Brittney and I have been banned for life.

To avoid a scene, Paula escorted Brittney and her selections into the dressing room while I waited. And waited……and WAITED. I swear I have adult ADD and it is very difficult for me to just sit and wait. I started wondering around. At first it was just through the shoe department located just out side the dressing rooms. I found a pair Teva river guide shoes so I felt that my time waiting was at least productive.

I waited some more….Then I wandered over a few more isles, keeping the dressing room in view. Still no Paula and Brittney.

Incredulous, I watched as women who had 5, 6, 7 items entered the dressing room and emerged. Still no Paula and Brittney.

I roamed…

I waited.

Just as I was about to send in a search party, Paula and Brittney emerged with 2 dresses that would work.

Then came the questions about panty hose:

Brittney: Why do I have to wear panty hose?
Paula: because you’re wearing a dress?
Brittney: but why?
Paula: It’s just what you do.
Brittney: That sucks. I hate them. Why do I have to wear them?
Jeanette; (thinking to herself) Why do women HAVE to wear panty hose with dresses?
Will the world end if they don’t?
Paula: It’s just the rule. You wear panty hose with a dress. You have to wear them. End of story!!

Then it was on to shoes. Brittney wears a size 7. She spots the perfect shoe in a size 5. Determined that they will fit, she ignores the words “too small” coming simultaneously from Paula and I. Grimacing from the pain, she gives up.

Brittney continually heard “no” as she held up one shoe after another. Finally she settled for the first pair of shoes I’d originally picked out for her to try. A sensible shoe, with a slight heal, and in Black. This shoe would go with both dresses.

Wheeew! The hard part was over….

Wrong!

The day of the dance arrived. The dance was to start at 8pm. At noon Brittney was in the shower screaming and talking to her self. An hour later I heard the shower end and the hair trauma begin. The first curl came out perfect.

The second, not so perfect.

And well…by the third we had a crisis on our hands.

Brittney knows better than to come to me with hair styling issues, I am a wash and go kind of gal. For me there is no such thing as a bad hair day if you have plenty of baseball caps at your disposal.

As the four o’clock hour approached, the panic set in. How would she ever get her hair right in the three and a half hours she had remaining before departing for the dance?

There were frantic phone calls to several girlfriends. There were tantrums. There were tears. There was a melt down. And finally there was a second shower and the decision to wear her hair straight.

After we fed Brittney an early dinner, she was off to the bathroom again to put the entire look together. Hair was fine. Make up went without a hitch. The panty hose became an issue once again. But it was a minor issue this time.

There she stood, looking very pretty and all grown up form head to ankle. Pretty hair. Modest makeup, beautiful dress, panty hose and ….bulky black skaters shoes with skull and crossbones!

An argument followed. Something about not being able to dance in the heals. But the argument did not get her very far and soon we were making the ½ hour drive to her school to drop her off.

Brittney did not think she wanted to stay for the whole dance and asked us to pick her up at 10:15. As Paula and I drove home I said, “I bet she will be wishing she stayed for the whole dance when we pick her up.”

I was right. She had a great time. She danced a lot and is looking forward to the next dance. She brought Paula and I cookies for the ride home. And thus the first High School Homecoming is behind us.

God help us when it comes time for the Prom!!!