After the Dance

OK, so she went to her first semi-formal and apparently, it was a wonderful evening. I wouldn’t know because my daughter tells stories about people with names like “Fruity” and “Number 10” and “my friend” and “my other friend” and “this guy” and his counterpart “that girl”so that I can’t tell who she’s talking about and choose the one I’ll torture her about (Girly has a BOYfriend…) for the next couple days.

She was beautiful, and I’ll have photos in a couple days. Why so long? Because I know how I am, and it’ll take 2 days just to get the camera upstairs and another day or two to download it. Yeah, that’s right – I’m a procrastinator of the first order. And I wonder where my son gets it from.

So Girly and her friend who lives 2 doors down from us got dressed together for the dance. It was a sight to behold. Everything fell together and my princess and her friend grudgingly posed for photos and she walked down the stairs (without falling) in her new heels (which can HARDLY be called heels!) and out to our neighbor’s car. I was on pick-up duty. It was sweet to hear her and her friend giggling and comparing notes about makeup (which mine doesn’t wear) and what they thought their friends might be wearing and who they may be dancing with.

At the end of the dance, a barefoot, hoarse, but exhilarated girly got into my car with her friend. And the recap/post mortem continued in carefully chosen phrases on the way home. “If Tess (the ONE person whose name she’ll use) was there, a lot of things that happened wouldn’t have happened,” I am told. “Really? Would that have been good or bad?” I ask. Because heaven knows, you know? “Not sure. But it would have been different!” OK, so I attempt to back out of my parking space without running over any of the other handsomely dressed middle schoolers trying to find their parents’ cars, and I ask if she danced with anyone. Even though I can’t see her, you can almost HEAR her eyes rolling. It went like this:

Her: YES, I danced with someone.
Me: Really? That’s GREAT! Who?
Her: I don’t remember.
Me: You danced with people you don’t remember? Must have been some dance!
Her: (Audibly rolling her eyes again.) MOM! Yes, I danced. With lots of people.
Me: Anyone in particular?
Her: I don’t remember.

That’s the girly’s standard line when she doesn’t want to impart information. “I don’t remember.” We had to discuss this because I liken that to lying. I’d rather she just TELL me that she doesn’t want to tell me than lie to me and say she doesn’t remember. Because she’s not deficient in the memory department. Truly.

ANYHOW…the neighbor’s daughter slept over and the two of them got on the phone to their friend who couldn’t be there because she and her mom were at odds and giggled and chatted through 40 minutes and the evening was declared a success all around.
If only it were that easy all the time.