The More Things Change...

Tonight was the Homecoming dance. Oldest and his girlfriend are such ubercool seniors that they opted out, of course, but Middle Child was ALL OVER IT. She was on the planning committee. She was at the school at 10am today to decorate the gym. She cleaned her room.

She had three separate invitations from boys, and it was a bit of a dilemma for her, because while she liked all three boys, she didn't LIKE-like any of them, so whomever the pick might have been, they'd have been going "just as friends". This sort of arrangement, it is comforting to know, has not changed in the years since I was 14. Her two good friends, though, did not get invited, and were considering not going. In the end, the boy who was the front runner was grounded, and thus MC made up her mind that it would be WAY more fun to go as a group of girls, because if you're going to go as friends, you might as well go with your girlfriends, because that's who you'd be ditching your date to hang out with anyway. Wise choice, in my humble opinion.

It was decided that they would meet at one girl's house to get ready, and another girl's mom would drive every0ne home, so off we went, after I spent quite a while curling MC's hair.

The hair:
I have an odd situation going on with the parents of my children's peers. I'm typically about 10 years younger than the parents of my two older children's friends, and about 10 years older than the parents of the Small One's classmates. I guess my timing's always been off.

In any event, my "young mom" status got me ushered into the inner sanctum of MC's friend's room. It was funny to me. The music playing was Indigo Girls and Madonna, the girls were helping each other get ready, chatting and giggling and dancing, touching up make-up, trying out hairstyles and attitudes...

They were beautiful and young, insecure and giddy, gossipy and excited, protective and complimentary of one another. It could have been me in 9th grade, with April and Alisa, or a few years later with Dawn and Andrea, or a few years later still, with Abbi and Courtney. The music was the same, the conversation was eerily similar, there were fingerless gloves involved, for crying out loud! It was all somewhat comforting, actually, to see how little has changed since I was their age.

(Except the dresses! Wowie wow. How'd my little girl get so OLD all of a sudden?)