songbird's crazy world

Becca and her date mother and daughters the flowers: I love the dress! father and daughters graduation day the formal graduation pose the graduate with her diploma  -- she graduated with honors, of course. and as a member of National Honor Society

(cross posted at Midcentury Modern Moms ) Prom season -- that truly wonderful and exciting   dramatic and terrifying time of the year. If you've been reading my blog  you've seen me post about prom season before.  I never went to my high school prom.  I didn't have a lot of friends in my class, and my boyfriend at the time had very little money.  It didn't make sense for us to spend all that money, so we wound up going to the movies instead.  Not so with my daughters.  I have been living the "prom drama" life for 4 years now.  I've got the gray hairs to prove it! The dress...the shoes...the hair and makeup...do you know that there's actually a magazine called Your Prom that gives fashion tips?  Limo or party bus?  What after-prom activites -- a party at someone's house, a trip into NYC for a show at a comedy club?    Just the planning alone can cause gray hair for the parents. Our school's prom is for members of the...

Our high school schedules Senior Prom for the same weekend as graduation. the prom is Friday night, the graduation follows on Sunday. This year Senior Prom will be June 25. last night Becca wanted to discuss prom. or rather, after-prom. she wants to rent a house in the Hamptons. can you tell I am nervous? Jen and her friends never did that....their after-prom activities involved taking the limo into the city and going to a comedy club. That's what Becca did last year, when she went to her friend's senior prom. Becca's group of friends want to spend Friday night through Sunday morning at a beach house. Becca and Justin are in charge of planning this event. they plan on a group of 30 - 40 kids. Becca tells me that the kids on the guest list are in the "goody-two-shoes" category, I won't have to be concerned about drinking or drugs. "Don't worry, mom." I'm worried.

Jen, Sal and Becca: Jen and Sal: Becca and Michael: and of course both girls:

so you recall the prom drama . How Jen broke up with Dean right after she paid for the nonrefundable prom dress? there's more to the story. seems that my daughter paid for her own prom ticket. she handed the (now ex) boyfriend $85 for a prom ticket. apparently she was the one who convinced him to go to the prom, because now that they broke up the young man isn't going to the prom at all. he told Jen that the prom tickets were nonrefundable. at Jen's insistence I called the high school and spoke to the senior class advisor. the teacher told me that a refund check would be issued to the young man's mother, as he was the student and he was the one who purchased the tickets. so now she's trying to chase down her $85. the young man won't talk to her at all. I told her to write it off as a "life lesson", but my little girl is a toughie -- she intends to get her money back.

so my college girl got invted to the high school prom . the girls were supposed to go to prom together. last week Jen went outlet shopping for a prom dress -- it wouldn't do to wear the dress she wore to her own prom, after all. she went outlet shopping and found a dress. made sure she was absolutely in love with the dress, because the dress could not be returned. bought and paid for the dress on Firday. on tuesday she told me she'd broken up with the boyfriend and won't be going to his prom after all.

Becca and her date: posing in the dress:

I wrote about Becca's upcoming prom experience. didn't realize at the time... last night Jen came home from college for the summer. today she met up with her former boyfriend. he's a year younger than she is, currently a high school senior. guess who's going to prom? yep, Becca and Jen are both going to our school prom, they're even riding in the same limo.

Miss Rebecca Alexis has advised me that she is invited to not one, but two proms this spring. Our school district has done away with "junior prom". They have a semi formal "junior outing" instead, a casual dinner-dance on a party boat that cruises the Great South Bay. the kids don't "pair up" for the outing like they'd do at prom, there are no limos, no formal "after prom" parties. but that doesn't mean parents of juniors can avoid prom. Especially parents of junior girls . Becca has been invited to junior prom at another school -- a boy she met while working at camp last summer -- and she's been invited to one of the senior proms in our district (we've got 2 high schools, and they both hold prom on the Friday night before graduation). so we're getting swept up in the dress-hair-makeup scene. and the "mom, I need 2 dresses, I can't wear the same dress to both proms because everyone posts their prom pictures ...

because my girls are so close in age, I barely have time to recover from participating in the rights of passage for my older daughter, when I find myself doing the same with the younger daughter. I feel like we just went to Jen's graduation, it's hard to believe she will finish her first year of college in just a few weeks. Becca is a junior this year, which means she's been taking college entrance exams and visiting college campuses. in a few weeks she will sit for her formal senior portrait, and shortly after that we will receive the "proofs" -- and I will see my baby in cap and gown. and then she will go to the junior outing,a semi formal held in lieu of a junior prom (which does not involve all those after=prom issues!) and today she informed me that one of her friends, a boy who goes to the other high school in our district, has invited her to senior prom.

if you can't see the whole picture, click on it to enlarge. Here's Jen in the dress she wore to senior prom: and here's Becca in a dress she wore to a friend's sweet 16: