Choosing to SEE - Mary Beth Chapman [56]
She could not wait to call her daddy. She was so excited, but she wanted his approval. She would not take the dress off, and she continued to cry off and on for 45 minutes until Steven could get there to see it on her.
My prayer changed from spiritual to practical. Emily was so thrilled with that dress . . . and I hadn’t even seen the price tag yet.
The look on Emily’s face was priceless; I just hoped the dress wasn’t!
All of us had just about finished sniffling when Steven arrived. We made him sit on the couch with his eyes closed as Emily waited in the dressing room. Then Emily stepped up on the platform, the gown was fluffed and arranged, and Steven opened his eyes on the count of three.
For just a split second, I saw a familiar look in his eyes. Kind of like the day he saw me in my wedding dress. Then there were more tears, a big group hug, and the dress was a “yes”!
I made my way over to the consultant. To my surprise and delight the dress was reasonably priced for a wedding gown. As Emily came out of the dressing room, the consultant said that since the dress was in pretty good shape and fit her so well, we could buy the floor sample if we wanted to. This would mean a reasonable discount. Other than a little dirt around the hem, the dress looked like new.
But I wanted to buy her a new one.
“Mom,” my practical Emily said. “I’m getting married outside at home, in the grass! It doesn’t matter. Let’s just get this one and save some money!”
So we did. I was happy about the discount, and Emily left the dress shop floating on a cloud, grateful that the big moment of choosing her gown had gone so well and that her closest girlfriends and family had experienced it with her.
Steven and I grabbed an early dinner with some friends and then headed home. I took the bagged dress out of the trunk of the car and headed upstairs to hang it in my closet. Shaoey, Stevey Joy, and Maria came running in. They couldn’t believe that we actually had Emily’s wedding dress. I unzipped the bag and pulled out the lacy, flowing gown.
Maria, being the youngest and most unrestrained, laughed and wrapped the lace around herself. She was excited that Emily had asked her to be a flower girl, and you could see her little mind churning, pretending it was her own wedding day.
Now, the next morning it was warm and sunny, a flawless spring day. Steven headed off, coffee in hand, to take Shaoey to school. Stevey and Maria had graduated from preschool six days earlier, and they were excited about getting to stay home and play.
My friend – Steven’s assistant, “Amazing” Grace – came over. She was helping me choose colors for a bedroom I wanted to paint. As Grace and I walked up the stairs, Maria was just ahead of us, giggling as I pinched her tiny butt all the way up the steps. When we got to the landing, she was already there, sitting on a bench next to an almost life-size Chinese doll, frozen in place, pretending to be a Chinese doll.
“Where’d Maria go?” I asked Grace. “I don’t see Maria, just this doll sitting here.”
Maria jumped up and flew into my arms. “I’m right here, Mama!”
A little bit later our babysitter Melissa arrived. Since Maria and Stevey Joy were both bouncing around the house while Steven and I were trying to work on wedding lists and final plans for Caleb’s graduation party that weekend, Melissa and another friend, Wendy, had asked if they could take the girls to a playground that had just opened, the Monkey Tree House.
Melissa and the girls were gone for a few hours. When they came back, they’d had a wild time at the Monkey Tree House and lunch at McDonalds. Around three o’clock, I told Melissa that it was such a beautiful day and she’d been working so many hours, why didn’t she just head home? So she kissed the girls and went on her way.
By now Shaoey was home from school, and the girls were running in and out of the house, having a big time. They loved to hang out on the playground pretending that they were the Chapman