My Madelyn loves dresses, especially pink ones with sparkles and big skirts. We found a perfect match for her at Costco last week and she has wanted to wear that dress every day since we bought it!
At first, I felt the need to preserve the dress for a “special occasion” but quickly realized her logic made more sense! When I told her, that we were saving the dress for Easter she said, “ Why? Why can’t I wear it now it looks so pretty to me and it makes me feel happy! That made pretty good sense to me!
I had many moments like this during the last 8 years as a mom! Moments when I felt the need to abide by a certain set of rules because it is the way that I was raised or the way things “should be”. But when I thought about those rules, many just did not make sense enough for me to answer the why’s beyond saying “because I said so”. So my new rule is if I cannot explain the why beyond, “because I said so, it is not a valid rule.”
On the night this picture was taken Madelyn wanted to wear her dress to bed. She put it on after her bath before dinner and was determined to wear it. I told her that she had to wear her jammies to dinner and then she could change into her dress because we were having meatballs and a red sauce. She did not like this and threw a fit. Suddenly she disappeared and came back a few minutes later with her jammies on over the dress!!
She had her top over the dress and her pants under it! She said, “Will this work Mommy? Then when I am all done eating I can just take off my jammies and wear the dress to bed! Is that a good plan?”
Oh my goodness!! My heart melted into a little puddle! I was so proud of that little nugget! What a great idea! She had come up with it all by herself! Guess what?! She wears that dress whenever she wants now, including Easter Sunday!