the winner

Originally uploaded by kzoomoo

I took everyone except Xay and Chanya to the mall today. It was time to pick out a dress for Yanni and the pageant. We’d determined that the old prom dress would not do; nobody wears rose colored taffeta anymore, and as much as Yanni is game for playing dress up and being different–that’s just too different for a pageant kind of thing.

She’d done her homework and found out that Deb’s was selling something that might be appropriate, and she’d researched the gown length requirements–none.

Armed with this information, I went off with the intention of bagging that special dress. I thought we’d try Macy’s first, to give us a gold standard? Idk in retrospect. At the time, I’d thought that Macy’s after Deb’s would make us despise Deb’s. Turns out, we hated Deb’s anyway.

It was so much fun playing with my life-size Barbie doll, trying on so many dresses just for the whimsy of it, trying to get it just right. The babies got into picking out pretty dresses for their sister to pick.

We narrowed it down to a white dress with black trim, a purple halter dress, a creme and gold dress, and a black dress.

It was down to the creme and gold vs the black dress at Macy’s when we pulled ourselves away to check out Deb’s. The dresses there looked like nightgowns in comparison, but we tried on three, including a floor-length gown, just to be safe.

My friend Carol called while we were at Deb’s. She has two sons, and was so excited about the idea of Yanni being in a pageant. “So that’s what you get to do with girls, huh?” she asked me. I really began to appreciate the expedition at that statement. It was so much
fun pulling at dresses and discussing the possibilities.

We took pictures of most of the dresses, and that was valuable in the end, as I could show Curtis the top choices and he could help pick our winner.

Yanni preferred the cream and gold dress, but in the end, she agreed that the black dress was the right choice. And we already had the perfect shoes at home!