Cue the Screaming Flower Girl

Dearest Sammie Girl,

 

In the wake of last month’s flying mishap, one would think that your mama would have learned her lesson about trying (and failing) to be the perfect parent.

Unfortunately, dear daughter, I wasn’t done yet. Last February, over a Valentine’s Day dinner date with daddy and some other friends, I bragged about how cute you were (and still are!). A few moments later, your Auntie Tamara talked about planning her sister’s vow renewal ceremony for the fall. This led to a now-embarrassing conversation where I shamelessly offered to you up/begged for you to be the flower girl for the aforementioned ceremony.

 

Fast forward to eight months later, and it’s a few hours before the mountain wedding. The past several months had been spent hopelessly hoping that you would:

 

1. Be able to walk down the aisle.
2. Be able to walk down the aisle with the ring bearer.
3. Be able to walk down the aisle with the ring bearer holding a basket of flower petals.
4. Be able to walk down the aisle with the ring bearer holding a basket of flower petals and wearing the dress I’d bought earlier in the summer (providing it fits).
5. Be able to walk down the aisle with the ring bearer holding a basket of flower petals and wearing the dress I’d bought earlier in the summer (providing it fits) and SMILING.

 

Much like I should’ve known that things weren’t going in our favor when our first flight was cancelled on the now infamous Seattle trip, I should’ve stopped when we were ahead when your father woke up that morning feeling ill.

 

So much for hoping that he would be at one end of the aisle while I tried to cajole you into walking toward me (strategically placed in a pew by the end of the aisle)!

 

With the bad news fresh in the back of my mind, I tried to make the most of the situation by packing you into the car with a frozen bagel to nosh on while we drove an hour to Shaver Lake.

 

The original plan was to take all pictures before the ceremony so that the bridal party and guests could go straight from the church to the nearby community center for lunch. Yeah, that didn’t happen. We got a few pictures of you playing with the flower petals in the aisle while we waited for the guests to trickle in:

Let me let you in on a little secret Sammie, so you can prepare yourself now for your own big day: weddings NEVER go as planned. They never start on time, and something almost always goes wrong. In hindsight, it’s usually something insignificant that goes amiss—as it was in your case, with no basket of flower petals to be found.

 

And so, as it was with moments to go before the trip down the aisle, the plan had to be modified:

 

Be able to walk down the aisle with the ring bearer holding a basket of flower petals and wearing the dress I’d bought earlier in the summer (providing it fits) and SMILING.

 

I tried my best to keep you happy, but you were hungry. It was after 12, and we still had a wedding to get through along with a full on photo session afterward.

 

The plan had to be modified again.

  

Be able to walk down the aisle with the ring bearer holding a basket of flower petals and wearing the dress I’d bought earlier in the summer (providing it fits) and SMILING.

Apparently, grumpiness is contagious because your fits of screams spread to the ring bearer. Back to the drawing board we went.

 

Be able to walk down the aisle with the ring bearer holding a basket of flower petals and wearing the dress I’d bought earlier in the summer (providing it fits) and SMILING.

 

We were down to walking down the aisle and wearing the flower girl dress.

  

Quietly, I slipped out of the lobby to wait for you at the other end of the aisle while some of the wedding attendants made their march to the altar.

 

*Cue the epic screaming that probably shook the San Andreas Fault a little more than it should*

 

 Frantically, I raced back to the lobby to appease you and give up on the dream of being the mother of the cute little flower girl who walked down the aisle with the ring bearer holding a basket of flower petals and wearing the dress I’d bought earlier in the summer (providing it fits) and SMILING.

 

Unfortunately, my timing was slightly off and I didn’t get there in time, so Auntie Tamara (the matron of honor) took things into her own hands and picked you up to carry you, screaming to the high heavens, down the aisle.

 

It may not have been my initial plan, but this is what actually happened:

 

You were carried Be able to walk down the aisle with the ring bearer holding a basket of flower petals robey and bright blue sippy cup wearing the dress I’d bought earlier in the summer (it fit) and SMILING and SCREAMING.

  

You see, in all of my plans, I had overlooked one important detail: you are 16 months old. Not even a year and a half. Most wedding experts advise against having flower girls and ring bearers who are under the age of six.

 

Oh, well, I tried. You kept quiet in my lap during the ceremony, except, of course, when you decided to get extra chatty during the prayer. Afterward, I tried to coerce you into exiting the church with the rest of the wedding party, but you were on to me. You refused.

 

More dramatic moments followed a little later on when I tried to get you to back into the church to take pictures with bridal party. You decided that goldfish weren’t cutting it anymore and you wanted a full-fledged meal. You informed me of this by opening your mouth and letting out the biggest wails I’d ever heard out of your little body. 

 

Putting you on my hip, I took you across the parking lot to the second story community center (I’m giving you the details now, dear Sammie, so that if I should ever need a hip replacement surgery, you’ll know why and feel sorry for me and treat me like a queen). I quickly stripped you down (I got ONE part of the plan right in the dress so I wasn’t about to risk ruining that, too), set up your portable high chair and made my way to the kitchen to beg the catering staff for food to make your stomach happy.

 

Making off with two rolls, I handed both of them to you. Satisfied with my offerings, you thanked me by quieting down long enough to eat both rolls.

 

Determined to be the perfect mother of the flower girl (when will I ever learn???), I unstrapped you from the high chair, put your dress back on, and hoisted you on my hip to go downstairs and across the street for the photo session. After all, isn’t that what being a flower girl is about? Looking good in pictures?

 

The picture I had dreamed about looked something like this:

 

You, standing with the rest of the wedding party, smiling from ear to ear.

 

Simple, right? Not anything unreasonable?

 

Um, yeah, that would be a negatory. No such luck. Attempts to get you in the pictures were unsuccessful, if not laughable. Anytime I plunked you down for a picture, you responded by walking away, distracted by anything and everything around you.

 

As it were, it was looking like this would be the picture we would get:

 

You, standing with the rest of the wedding party, smiling from ear to ear. (as in, no pictures at all).

 

A light bulb went on when I noticed that your favorite thing to look at were the flowers in the church’s garden. We sent off Auntie Tamara’s husband Jeff to get one of the roses used in the bouquets in the hopes that we could use flowers to lure you into the pictures.

 

The rose brought you a little closer to our goal, but by the time the photographer started clicking away, you had already moved on to the next thing: walking/stumbling around the grass while I nervously chased you around hoping against hope that you wouldn’t fall and ruin your flower girl dress with the grass stains that you were sure to get if you fell down on the dewy patch of lawn.

 

The picture we ended up with was something like this:

 

Oh, well. You may not have been ‘technically’ standing by the bride and groom, but you were at least in the same picture frame and were giving the illusion of smiling.

 

The two of us spent the next hour and a half at the reception, and methinks you liked that part of the wedding the best. You had plastic wine glasses in each of your hands and were quite content to wander about the room, making friends wherever you went.

 

 

 

Two boys took a particular liking to you.

 

 

 

You, my darling, returned their affection for the most part, smiling and giggling whenever they came around.

 

 

 

Then you poked this poor fellow in the eye after this picture was taken.

 

 

 

If that’s how you ward off aggressive suitors, I’m sure as heck not going to stop you. In fact, I just may teach that to you as the proper response for all forms of physical affection.

 

Our much-rehearsed conversation fifteen years down the road might go something like this:

 

Mama: What do you do when your date tries to hold your hand?

 

You: Poke him in the eye!

 

Mama: What do you do when he tries to give you a good night kiss?

 

You: Poke him in the eye!

 

Mama: What do you do when he goes for a hug instead?

 

You: Poke him in the eye!

 

Yeah, I could get used to the the poke-him-in-the-eye-approach.

  

Loving you tons, my cute little flower girl,

 

your mama