Prom

We had a productive weekend. It wasn't overly busy – in fact, we took time out for a nice drive in the country Saturday morning – but I got a bit accomplished. All the travel arrangements for our trip to Oregon have been made and information printed off. We will have to keep up our walking routine so we're in shape for the “transferring planes dash” at Denver Airport.

I turned on Katie Couric's show this afternoon. She began the show with a prom theme, and surprised 47 high school seniors from a specialty high school in New York City with free dresses, shoes, and makeup so they can go to their prom. The girls were very excited and surprised.

My high school didn't have prom when I was a student. The school closed a short nine years after I graduated, and at some point during that time frame they did finally have prom. Once in awhile we could share in the excitement of prom if one of our students was invited to prom at another school – I think we were the only school not doing prom by then, but we did have our fantastic annual senior trip. But there was just a bit of electricity in the air when someone got to go to prom. We always wanted to hear all about it.

As my kids grew, I looked forward to their being old enough to go to prom. I always worked to teach the kids to be independent – some days I would think maybe I succeeded a bit too well. When older daughter was a junior in high school, I was excited for her to go to prom. She was excited as well – but her excitement included going dress shopping with a friend. She did ask me to do her hair – she wanted curls, and her hair had always been difficult to curl. And when prom night arrived, it was raining cats and dogs. She was probably disappointed with her hair, but I did the best I could.

By the next year, I had two going to prom – but the boy took care of ordering his own tux, and the girl once again went shopping with friends There was no request for curly hair. And son's only dilemma was asking to borrow my car since he was driving an old beat-up pickup. One of the big prom traditions at their school is Grand March, where the prom couples go across the auditorium stage one at a time to be introduced and show off their finery to the crowd of parents and well wishers. Neither kid participated.

When younger daughter was old enough for prom, I was used to the idea that I wasn't going to be included in prom preparation. So I was ecstatic when she shopped for her prom dress with me in tow. She was practical, and we went shopping not long after Christmas – and scored a clearance price on a dress left on the rack after not being purchased for that local high school's winter ball. It was a gorgeous hunger green and worked just fine for spring prom. She also asked me to do her hair, but that was do-able because her hair had always curled. We had tiny hunter green and silver roses that I wove into her hair after doing a curly up-do for her. But she, too, opted not to do Grand March.

In the early spring of her senior year, she started working at Worlds of Fun Amusement Park and spent every weekend in Kansas City. She did her own prom dress shopping and paid for a beauty shop appointment that year. She still wouldn't do Grand March, but since I was working two jobs then it didn't matter. I was cleaning the bathrooms at a local gas station while she was dancing the night away.

When hubby started working for the local radio station playing Big Band music, I was thrilled to find out they did an annual spring “Big Band Ball”. Hubby wasn't overly excited about getting gussied up and dancing the night away, especially the necktie part. But I told him my “no prom” story and commented this was as close as I was ever going to get. From then on, he understood how much I enjoyed it.