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little girls and dresses

Next to sponge rollers, I can't think of anything I disliked more as a child than wearing a dress. I was reminded of that again on Sunday. As always, a certain young tot needed to use the restroom, and seeing as Middle School toilets (our church is renting a school building on Sundays) are NOT easily accessible to two-four year old little bodies, lifting a child up onto the seat is required. It's one of those times when you want to be an octopus. There's this tiny little person with a beautiful, frilly dress and a long sassy bow - that takes both of her hands to hold up, and she could probably use a third. About the time she manages to get her dress out of the way, she looks up at you with one of those deer caught-in-the-headlight looks and lets go with one hand as she attempts to maneuver her tights and undies. So I hold the dress and bow while she shimmies, then she wads her dress into small bundles. About the time I get her on the seat I realize her bow is coming undone, leaving a trailing line right towards the open toilet. And people wonder why we leave the flowing, beautiful dresses behind to our childhood.
And for all these people who talk about teaching beauty, modesty, and decency to our girls: did you know that most Christian schools who require dresses also require for the girls 3rd grade and under to wear SHORTS under them? Little girls love to climb up the slide. They climb on the monkey bars - and turn flips --all in a dress. And little boys, even though they know absolutely nothing, will look and giggle.
Sometimes I wonder what I would do if I had a little girl. Would I attempt to dress her up? My Mom would probably say that if I ever had a little girl, she'd pray very hard that the kid would be prissy (because I wasn't and I'm still not) and gave my little sister quite a hard time for being so. But realistically, even if Bobby and I could have children, any child of ours would be crawling up the back of his chair and jumping off or turning flips, and I just can't see that in a dress. While I'm not athletic, my piano teacher used to laugh and tell my Mom to make me do my lesson either first or last (there were three of us taking) so I could either get it over with and head outside to climb her oak trees, or let me climb until dark and then I'd be having lessons when I couldn't play. Wasn't Mrs. Nunly nice and understanding? It's just too bad they didn't make nice dress pants for girls when I was little.

Comments

Jennifer said…
i know it couldn't have been Jenna....no frilly dress for her!!( only because I don't have any fall dresses). I think you would enjoy dressing her up. I know I enjoy dressing Jenna up. I also enjoy her casual clothes though too.
Carroll said…
aaaggghhh! Sponge rollers! I just had a flashback!
Lydia said…
Hmmm...well it certainly wasn't Kimberly because the child REFUSES to let me dress her fancy. I had to search the world just to find pants that were dressy enough for church. Talk about your Sunday morning clothing fights...
Monica said…
my mother would sympathize with you..maybe when I go home for Turkey Day I'll get some pics of me dressed for Sunday...I look back and wish those were battles Mom had won

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