It’s the 1940,s Daddy
It’s Sunday afternoon and my
daughter comes out of church screaming and jumping she is so excited. I have seen her get excited like this before
but this kind of reaction is normally caused by a birthday party invitation. In
complete amazement and curiosity on my part I ask her
”What’s going on?”
“A daddy daughter dance!” She
squeals. Now her excitement makes
complete sense. She loves spending time
with her dad and now gets to go dancing with daddy. She then proceeds to tell me about the theme.
“Its dress up like your ancestors.
I want to dress up like my Cherokee side.” She is bouncing on her toes as we go
out to the vehicle. So I do what I always
do, I start researching. I had even made
her a necklace and had started a bow, arrows and was moving onto her doll when
she comes out of church a month later crying like her best friend had
died. I thought whoa, what is
wrong? She then tells me through a lot
of tears that they changed the theme. Now each ward or congregation is dressing
up like a specific era.
She firmly declared“I don’t want
to go.” I was stunned. I had erroneously assumed that she wanted to go solely because
of her dad and being able to go dancing.
As she explained her disappointment further I realized the theme was
also a big part of her excitement. I tried
to comfort her by reassuring her that there are a lot of classy, beautiful
styles from the 1940’s. She looked at me
doubtfully.
“Sweetie, lets at least look
at the styles from that time period. You might like some of them.” I said.
When we got home I pulled up
images of woman from the 1940’s. As she
looked through pictures with me, it was like I could see her thinking. Oh that’s
not bad. After about an hour of looking
at pictures it became clear to me that she at least loved all the dramatic
hats, hair styles and fur one lady wore.
She did eventually pick a dress style she wanted me to imitate.
Creating this dress for her
was difficult for me; not due to the cut, material or construction. My difficulty was in making a dress that was
designed to fit her exact shape. When I make
things for her I try very hard to make it big enough so that she can stay in it
for six months or hopefully a year. I like to make them looser because when I make
something for my girls it is usually sturdy enough that they outgrow it long
before it wears out(even with me adding growing room). However, with the style
she picked I would have to make it fit her exactly as she is now or the dress
would not hold its shape. I kept
thinking if she has another growth spurt, this won’t fit her in a month.
I finally stopped my internal
spluttering when it hit me that this is one of those “use once” dresses. Most women know that there are times that you
acquire a dress that you only plan on wearing once; prom, homecoming, wedding
dress etc. There are not a lot of
dresses that fall into the “use once” situation. A “use once” dress from my perspective is ok
when the situation is one that will not likely ever be repeated and the event should
have only good feelings associated with it, if possible.
To me my daughters’
relationship with their father is massively important. A father has the great potential to show his
daughter what a real man “looks like” and how a real man behaves towards her. A father also (in my opinion) has the biggest
effect on what a girl thinks about herself.
Due to my feelings on this subject, my husband takes our daughters out
on daddy/daughter dates, where they go out and do something and talk. However, this daddy daughter dance was not
like her other dates with Daddy, where they go play at a park together, or go
to a pet shop to look at the bunnies.
This was a “formal” setting, where all the dads were taking their daughters
out; dressed up, then to dinner, and dancing.
As I realized the possible
impression and example for our daughter this evening might be with her dad I set
to work. I finished the dress in just enough time to do her hair and get her
out the door.
When they came back she was
so happy. I later asked my husband how
it went. To which he responded with a smile “She had a good time. We danced together a few times but I think
she had more fun dancing with her girlfriends. “I had to laugh, all that
talking about spending time with dad and she spent most of the night dancing
with her friends.
Materials
Blue cotton-left over from
some else’s project 0.00
White thread- left over from
another project 0.00
Blue thread- left over from
another project 0.00
Eggshell colored lace- left over
from another project 0.00
White buttons- left over from
another project 0.00
Navy blue blanket binding- left
over from another project 0.00
Total Cost
o.oo
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