Monday, February 15, 2016

A "No Dance" Valentine's Day Dance


Another fun dance invitation from Spencer had us out shopping for her Valentine's Day outfit. When I asked her what color dress she wanted, she said "red" on her talker. Since finances are tight and she has re-worn each cute dress in her closet more than a few times, we headed off to the ARC for a little searching. She followed me up and down the 2 dress aisles. I said "Molly, YOU need to pick a few too. I'm not the only one searching here." She backed up and went straight for the red dress I avoided and that you see here.  It was like a potato sack and had no shape to it and desperately needed to be ironed. So I grabbed a few other *cuter dresses (though none of them were red). We headed to the dressing room to try on all 5 of them.

Molly was very excited about the red dress so she tried that one on first. It fit like a glove and she was ready to go. Like leave the dressing room NOW. But I wanted her to see if any of the others ones looked cuter ON her and you can only know that by trying them on, right? She was not excited about that. Felt like she was thinking "I'll do it for you, Mom, but I already know which dress I'm getting".

One was a little too open at the neckline. Another was so cute on her but I'm always a little nervous with short dresses as she doesn't sit like a lady and might do some fast dance spins that would flare up the dress like Marilyn. So after they had all been put on and taken off, I asked her "So which one do you want to buy?". And she adamantly grabbed the red one. You can't beat $3 :)

AND it looked good with her talker case, red necklace and cute boots.

Spencer's dad had him for the weekend, so they picked up Molly. Jon prompted Spencer to open the car door like a gentleman for Molly to let her in. Then Spencer walked off. Jon said "Come back and close the door". (These kids crack me up as they are SO literal. He did exactly what his dad asked). Spencer did a half ass push of the door that did not close it. Jon and I laughed and said "Close it all the way. We want to keep Molly safe". Then Spencer went and sat in the back with her.

About an hour later, I got a text from Jon: "Molly's not interested in dancing tonight. Any ideas for how to get her started?"

I almost fainted. Molly NOT dance?!!!! My girl is not picky about music and dances to every decade of tunes created. She loves a crowd and the ARC Dance is always packed. What could possibly have been the reason that she didn't dance? That my friends, is a question that we might never have the answer to. Molly can not answer (yet) the "why" questions. Or the "how", "what"...and often the "who" and "when" ones either.

We (I) had talked during our shopping outing about including others on the dance floor with her if there were kids that looked like they wanted to dance but didn't have someone to dance with. That's the beauty of these dances, as I have written before: Moms can slow dance with daughters and no one bats an eye. As always, I never really know what Molly understands as I talk to her so who knows what she took from that conversation? Maybe it was something like "DO NOT DANCE TONIGHT!"?

Afterwards, I started worrying that maybe she just wasn't into Spencer anymore? It's been 3 years and maybe she just needs a break? So I broached the subject by seeing if she wanted to include him on her pre birthday celebration of bowling and PF Chang's today. She adamantly said "Yesch" (yes). So it wasn't him that kept her from dancing.

A separate side story from the same day: Molly and I went up to the Air Force Academy to watch them play Denver University in lacrosse while the boys went skiing. It was a beautiful Colorado day where the sun was warm and the stands were packed for a great lacrosse game. It is notoriously windy on that campus, so when the wind would pick up, everyones coats would go on. When the wind would die down, the coats were taken off. Molly was completely hidden under a big blanket that I had brought for that very reason. Also she could look at pictures more clearly on my phone from under there. After a while, I leaned over to talk to her through the blanket and said "Mol, are you okay under there?". The lady sitting in front of us turned and looked at me with the most shocked look on her face and said "Your MOTHER is under there?!!" Made me laugh. "Mol" and "Mom" DO kind of sound alike in the wind.

Happy Presidents' Day!



2 comments:

hollysue said...

It's kind of funny, because I want to hear the answer to the end of the story? Why didn't she dance? Yet . . . we just don't know? You must have so many cliff hangers all the time. It seems like you have become comfortable with that. I love that. P.S. - I'm glad you commented on my blog, because it reminded me that I needed to see if you wrote a latest. I can't check fb until I'm done with a couple things, during this Lent season. Needless to say, I don't get to check fb on some days.

Kathy Bell said...

Not sure how I missed your comment Holly but you hit the nail on the head with the "cliff hangers" comment. It's the story of our lives as to what Molly's innermost thoughts and feelings are. We have learned to just appreciate her good moods and smiles and dread the crying and not knowing when she is sad. In reference to your recent "control blog" post....I have had to let go of a lot of that and it sucks :)