Dressing Emma

Chelsea’s comment on my last post made me reflect a little more on the various stages of Emma’s wardrobe choices. First, I should clarify that I bear some responsibility for the fact that Emma did not wear the dresses her grandma had bought her to nursery school. It’s true that they were not her first choice for school clothes, but they weren’t my first choice either. The dresses were somewhat fussy one-of-a-kind dresses that had been made by a seamstress friend of my mother’s. They required special attention when washed and needed to be ironed – not exactly the thing I wanted Emma wearing when she painted, glued and played on the playground.

Emma did wear dresses to school on occasion, though. When she was in her early elementary years, she almost always wore a dress on the first day of school. And picture day usually warranted a dress during those years, too. There was also a year, maybe even two, during elementary school that dresses were her preferred clothing choice. The dresses she favored during these years were chosen for their comfort, however, not their style. They were soft cotton knit dresses that hung loosely. At that stage in the game she hated anything that was tight on her waist. That's the stage I'm in now.

One thing I remember clearly is that I could never predict a change in her fashion winds. I would stock up on soft cotton knit dresses for her and she would announce that she now preferred leggings and tops to dresses. Right after buying lots of new pairs of leggings and tops, I would discover that she only wanted to wear jeans.

In general, she didn’t care a lot about clothes. She didn’t really like to shop and was, despite my inability keep track of her preferences, grateful for the clothes I brought home for her. She didn’t care about designer labels, in fact, she rather despised them. For many, many years her daily wardrobe could best be characterized as comfortable. Dressing up was reserved for special occasions and her dance recitals.  During these times, the little girl whose favorite playtime activity was dress-up came shining through. She loved getting dolled-up, an expression that seemed to fit her perfectly. With her porcelain complexion and beautiful, soft hair, she often looked just like a doll when she dressed up.

High school was when Emma began to express her individuality through clothes. She had a style that was sometimes quirky, sometimes sophisticated, but always unique. Hats were central to her wardrobe, as I’ve mentioned before. She also loved retro clothes. Goodwill was her store of choice. One of her favorite Goodwill purchases was a pair of red snakeskin pumps that livened up any outfit. Her every day fashion icons were her cousin Liz and her flute teacher, Adrianne. They understood the beauty of a great hat and a pair of snakeskin heels.

Choosing to stand out in the crowd is a bold choice in high school. This is just one of many ways that Emma bravely tried to be true to herself when being like everyone else would have been a much easier path. I'm very proud of her for that. And maybe its a naive dream, but I hope that part of her legacy will be that the path will be just a little easier for kids like her who are brave enough to be their own person.

Dressing Up

Recently, I was thinking about the dresses my mom used to buy the girls each year. When Emma and Sarah were born, my mom was so excited to be adding two more girls to our male dominated family. She seized every opportunity to dress her girls up. I remember that when Emma started nursery school, my mother bought her a selection of “school” dresses. I didn’t have the heart to tell my mom that little girls didn’t really dress up for school anymore, or that I usually let Emma pick out her own outfits, which were often quite interesting.

My mom got really serious about dressing up her girls for Christmas and Easter. She had a favorite children’s clothing catalog that would arrive at her house on an almost monthly basis. The Christmas dresses would start appearing in their catalog as early as August and my mother would immediately want the girls and me to flip through the catalog and pick the dress that they each wanted to wear that year. When they were very little, I did most of the picking, but it wasn't very long before they were active participants in the selection process.  It sometimes felt a little weird to be choosing Christmas dresses when we still wearing bathing suits, but in my mother’s book, it was never too early to start thinking about her favorite holiday.

Almost as soon as Christmas was over, the catalog with the Easter dresses would arrive and we’d begin the selection process all over again. In this case, we were picking out spring dresses while it was still freezing cold. Frankly, it was often still freezing cold on Easter when they had to wear the springy dresses we chose. They would shiver their way through church and through the annual Easter egg hunt at my mom’s and then change into something more comfortable and warm. My mom often only got a glimpse of them in their Easter finery. But that didn’t really seem to matter. I sort of think she enjoyed watching the girls flip through the catalog and pick out their dresses as much as she enjoyed seeing them wear them.

And these dresses have created a legacy. Each one was beautiful and treasured and I have carefully stored them away for the next generation. It will be one way the next generation gets to know about their beautiful Aunt Emma.

Easter Pictures

Here are some Easter photos I meant to post earlier:

The Two Grandmas

The comment posted by Emma's grandma in which she referred to herself as "the other grandma" reminded me of the way Emma came up with to distinguish her two grandmothers. Early on, really as early as she started calling them by name, she started referring to my mom as Curly Gram and Peter's mom as Striped Gram. We recognized that "Curly Gram" referred to the fact that my mom had curly hair, but we weren't sure what the significance of striped in "Striped Gram" was. When we asked Emma, she said, "Curly Gram's hair is curly and Striped Gram's hair is striped." For a long time we assumed she was referring to the streaks of gray in Peter's mom's hair when she called her hair striped. But quite some time after she started using these monikers for her grandmothers, we discovered that she had really meant to say straight. That made much more sense. One grandma had curly hair, one had straight hair. But the names never changed, even after Emma herself realized her error. For ever after, if we ever had confusion about which grandma we were discussing, someone would always ask, "Curly or Striped?"


So, just for clarity, the comment on yesterday's post came from Striped Grandma.

Violets

 I'll be looking for you... every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other again, we'll cling together so tight that nothing and no one'll ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you... We'll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pine trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams...

 Philip Pullman

It’s hard not to see signs of Emma in our yard when we look outside these days. Our yard is awash in purple, as we have a bumper crop of violets this year. Emma loved these little purple gems that bloomed each year, painting her backyard in her favorite color. It was a spring ritual for Emma to go out in the yard when they first appeared and pick a handful for me. She would bring them inside and we would pull down a cream pitcher to put them in and place them on the kitchen table for all to enjoy. When we were at my mother’s house at this time of year, she would do the same for thing for her Gram. The violets she picked for my mom would be displayed in a tiny white pitcher that had a picture of violets painted on one side. I don’t know if my mom had bought the pitcher or been given the pitcher, but this was its express purpose – to display the bouquets of violets she was presented every spring by her children first and then her grandchildren.

In fact, I think one of the reasons I treasured those little handpicked violet bouquets that Emma picked for me every year is because I still remember picking and presenting a bouquet to my mom every spring. I remember hunting for the prettiest of them scattered around our yard and working hard to gather enough of them to constitute a suitably impressive bouquet. I remember the feeling of love and pride as I presented the little flowers to my mom. And I remember that she always seemed surprised and thrilled each time I brought them to her, just as we both were each time Emma brought the flowers to us.

Thinking of this inspired me. I went outside and picked two little bunches of purple and white violets and put them in two of three tiny blue vases that Emma, Sarah and Peter gave me just for this purpose. One I placed on our kitchen windowsill for all to enjoy and one I’m going to bring to my mom. She’ll be surprised and thrilled.