Dress up

I loved prom.

I know a lot of people didn't go to theirs or hated the whole thing. Me, I loved it. Maybe it was something about the whole dressing up thing. I love dressing up. Finding the shoes, the perfect dress, the coordinating outfits, the flowers. All that just holds a massive amount of appeal for me. And it was innocent. Back in my day, prom was just a big dance. It wasn't some kind of invitation to sex and orgies. Actually, I don't know, maybe it was. I just wasn't invited to those festivities. For me, it was a night of playing grown-up  princess with the pretty clothes and maybe a prince in a tuxedo.

So when my son was finally old enough to go to his first banquet, I was so excited. I knew better than to try to help him pick out a suit. I sent his dad. Shopping with the boy is always torture, mostly because he thinks that everything I pick out is wrong and ugly. I knew that if I suggested anything, he'd just hate it and I couldn't deal with the rejection from my then 13 year old son. With the help of a salesperson, a suit was selected and fitted. But the day of the dance, I could barely get a picture of him. He wanted to be with his friends. He didn't want to get dressed until he was at his friend's house. Only after considerable begging on my part, did he deign to put on the suit for me to take a picture, but by then my feelings were well beyond bruised. I wasn't going to share even a tiny part of this event.

He just doesn't get it. For him, it is just another dance. He gets to go hang out with his friends, ask a girl on a date, and have fun.

He doesn't understand that for me, there is a fun in just seeing the outfits. That for me --  it is a rite of passage seeing my boy growing into a man. That for me -- finding out that homecoming is this weekend from other people and not him is excruciatingly mean. When I asked him about it yesterday, he said he hadn't told me because I hadn't asked about homecoming.

So this morning, on the eve of yet another homecoming that I won't have pictures of, I picked a stupid fight with my son for no good reason. I blew out of proportion the fact that he overslept and missed his bus. I flew off the handle because he didn't ask me politely for a ride to school. I told him that he was going to be late and that wasn't going to call in and excuse the tardy because he should have gotten ready on time.

Ah, my parenting style at its finest.

So I'll resign myself to not seeing the pretty outfits, or rather, I'll get to peruse the pictures my friends have of their kids on Facebook. If I'm lucky, they'll catch pictures of my son in the background. Just one more thing I'm going to give up.

I hope my daughters will let me be part of their dances. Fingers crossed.