Store-bought Dresses of my Youth or (What a Selfish Child Was I?)

I was reading a super funny blog today that I’ve been reading for a couple of days now. See I’m anal and when I read one I like I have to go way back to the very first posting they wrote to find out why they started blogging and then continue on to the present in an attempt to get to know them better before I just start up reading in the very middle of their lives. I’m kind of just as anal about movies because I can’t just start watching one in the middle and I can’t miss any words, so if I can’t rewind them to hear every single word then I just won’t watch it.

Anyway, more about my OCD later, for right now I was reading this. The writer, Tammy writes, “When I was a little girl, I remember my mom going to great pains to make birthday cakes for my sister and me. By most reasonable standards, they were whimsical and delicious. Birthdays were one of the only times I was allowed to have sugar, so I should have been grateful. Instead, I was pissed. The cake didn’t look at all like the ones at the grocery store, or the ones at every other birthday party I attended. I felt cheated.”

It brought back memories of my childhood and the dresses that my mom would sew with so much love and detail for me and my sister. Sometimes she would sew the same exact dress for herself too and we would all go to church matching. It seems so sweet and loving and mommyish to me now. But back then I was pissed! I didn’t want home made dresses; I wanted the store-bought dresses my cousin Elpedia wore. I felt cheated!

Elpedia was blessed (I thought) with a mom who bought her beautiful, girlish, pink, chiffon and satin dresses with ribbons and lace, while I wore stupid cotton frocks that tied in the back and matched my little sister. I wanted “vestidos de la tienda”.

How selfish and childish were we when we were children, or was it just me that was selfish? I guess that’s why they called us children isn’t it? Now I see that my dresses were made by my mom’s loving hands, created in her head and heart by her love for us. No store bought dress could ever compete with that.

My daughter April was fortunate to have received many of these "labors of love" from my mom. I have pictures and pictures of her in dresses made by my mom, but what I don't have is a stinking scanner! I did take the first picture below by taking a picture with my camera of a picture hanging on my wall. April is the oldest grandchild (she's 27 now) and she's wearing a red velvet Christmas dress made for her by her Nana. April was probably about 2 in this picture.

The next picture is of the youngest and probably last grandchild my mom will ever have, Melissa. Melissa is also blessed to have received home-made, love-made dresses from Nana such as the Dora the Explorer sundress she's wearing that her daddy is trying to fluff up for the picture. My mom was not only talented but she's in the swing of things and knows who Dora the Explorer is, plus she thinks Melissa looks like Dora. Oh...and the chili pepper curtains you see to the right in Melissa's pictures were also made by my mom, because you just can't find chili pepper curtains and she's the Queen of the Chili Colorado!

And the girls in the family weren't the only ones to benefit from my mom's love and talent for sewing. In the next picture is my son Jim, her oldest grandson who is now 23. She sewed this Babe Ruth costume for him for a play at school where he had to be, what else? Babe Ruth. He still remembers this costume and I'm sure I have it tucked away somewhere in a box, as I do many other things, but that's a whole different OCD/packrat story for later.