Okay, does this make me the slut mom?

Last weekend was spent looking for the perfect dress for homecoming. Now mind you, Jennifer and friends are not going with dates, but with each other, much to her dad's relief. He's quite excited at the thought of driving the girls to dinner and to the dance. He's not allowed inside.

But back to the dress. Jennifer had a $100 limit, and she met up with her friend at the Supermall, with it seems most of Auburn High School. She finally found one in about shop #2, a dress that looks like....think Marilyn's famous white dress, except in blue. She looks wonderful in it, and the no, the slit doesn't go down as far as Marilyn's between the cleavage.

Then her friend tried on a dress, a square cut red number that made her look absolutely stunning. Now the friend is not a size 2, and she's short, so I thought the dress did all the right things, it camouflaged some parts and emphasized the curves. But unf. her mom thought differently, and fussed at the cleavage.

Oh common, a little cleavage isn't bad. But in the end, the friend went with another dress.

On the way home, Jennifer remarked that i was "way more relaxed than the other moms." Afraid at what she was referring to, I asked her to explain.

She mentioned the dress episode and the fact I was okay letting her go to the dance at all. The other moms were having second thoughts. Well, it's not like she's going with a senior, and she is 15, so time to the loosen the reins a bit.

I Dance With Cinderella

Or, actually, I've been hearing the theme songs from Cinderella for about two months now.

J. is in the school musical at the fairy godmother, so I can almost sing (loosely stated) the entire two verses of "Impossible" when FG first pops on the scene.

Which brings me to the dress. This last weekend we went out walking around the Auburn Supermall in search of the perfect fairy godmother dress (I was all for renting or Value Village, but we weren't finding anything, or at least anything in a size 4).

So we wandered into a prom/wedding dress shop, that was packed with bored boyfriends, nervous dads and weary moms, all searching for that perfect spring prom dress.

I spotted some odd tulle sticking out of one line of dresses and dug it out. Voila. It was blue, and not hot pink, and had tulle to spare, along with feathers dotting the top layer of fluff. It wasn't strapless (a no no in an eight grade play, it seems) and yet showed enough skin to satisfy my daughter.

She started to balk at the feathers, when I reminded her she wasn't going out on a hot date, but she was a FG. The feathers worked perfectly for that, as did the long poofy train in the back. Looking skeptical, she disappeared into the dressing room, with orders NOT to peak over the top.

And the dress fit perfectly. Okay, it fit if she inhaled.

Now, the price tag. Org. it was $350 cut down to $150, but once I told the store's owner that is was going to go to a school musical, and yes I planned to donate it for a tax deduction, she whacked it down to $100.

When J. pulled out the pile of fluff and presented it to her drama teacher yesterday, who exclaimed of it, declared it the perfect FG dress, and then asked how much it cost.

"On second thought, I don't want to know," he quickly added.

Unf. the alt. fairly godmother couldn't quite fit into the dress (I suggested we just lose the zipper and put in velcro, but was outvoted ), so she's going back to get the size 6.

Shopping for a New Dress

It was Easter after all.

And Jennifer headed out to the mall, with mom acting as the Easter Bunny (this is much more expensive than jelly beans) to buy a new dress. And I couldn't resist, I had to buy one for myself too.

Standing in line to try on said -almost strapless dress- for myself, I heard this exchange between father and daughter (who based on the slinky numbers walking into the dressing room, these were prom dresses, not Easter frocks).

Dad holds up dress from rack for daughter's approval, while she stands in line.

"Dad, I said nothing with sequins."

He holds up another offering.

"Not bows."

And yet another.

"That one gives me a headache," she sniffed, looking at the 1970s design of brown on orange.

I had to agree with her on that one. It made my head ache too, 30 years ago.

So, resigned, he walks over to darlin daughter and asks how much is the the slinky number she holding.

$150. Noticing his shocked look, she says "Now I told you it was going to cost that much before we went out."

He holds up headache dress. It's $60 cheaper.

"No way"