At the risk of sounding like a control freak or falling victim to gender stereotypes passed down from generations of women before me, I still feel fairly comfortable making the following statement. There are certain fathers out there who simply do not share the same attention to detail as their wives, especially when it comes to dressing their offspring. It's not that these dads can't or won't help clothe the children, it's just that their standards of what counts as appropriate attire happens to be a tiny bit looser than those usually upheld by the lady of the house. While most moms fuss over important details like whether clothing matches, which shoes look the best with the outfit in question, and whether or not their kid's hair has been carefully coiffed or not, a lot of dads tend to be a bit more relaxed in this arena. As in, is my son wearing pants? Check. No shirt? No problem. Is my kid wearing shoes on both of his feet? Check. One sandal. One snowboot. All systems go. Does it appear that the hair on my son's head has been combed at least one time in the last four days? No. Well it's nothing a little fatherly hair ruffling can't fix up. Cue hilarious fits of father & son laughter and even crazier hair post ruffle. You see what I mean?
If you follow this logic, you can easily understand why my mom was a bit apprehensive about leaving my dad in charge on the beautiful spring morning that my sister made her First Holy Communion. Due to the fact that my mom and sister were forced to arrive at the church hours before the rest of the family in order to take pictures and prepare themselves for the upcoming ceremony, I was left home alone with my dad. Because dressing a preschooler in a party dress and asking her to wear it for three whole hours before an event starts without accidentally coating it with chocolate pudding, crayon shavings, and clumps of dog hair was out of the question, wardrobe arrangements would have to be left in my dad's hands.
No big deal. My dad was a capable guy. Back in the day, he had handled major accounts for the hydraulics department of Cessna Aircraft. He knew how to operate a variety of motorized vehicles and heavy equipment. Planes, boats, motorcycles, backhoes, corn pickers, combines, and commercial vehicles were no challenge for him. If need be, along the side of the road, he could repair the family's broken down car (with the family still in it) while wearing white pants without getting a single speck of grease anywhere on his body. He knew how to successfully back up with a car load of rowdy kids and a howling dog, while having his vision completely obscured by the fact that the entire rear compartment of his vehicle was loaded to the gills. And he could still successfully repeat the same stunt when he was hauling a trailer. He could successfully launch a boat, amidst a crowd of rowdy, heckling onlookers and other extremely impatient sailors, without filing for divorce from my mom in the middle of the boat ramp. If you have ever been a part of the boating world, you will understand that this was no small feat. He built a spring fed lake on the family property using only a blueprint of his own design and a bulldozer. With this kind of experience under his belt, he could certainly handle the simple task of dressing his four-year old daughter for church.
Despite his confidence in his own skills, my mom still tried to develop a fool-proof plan. Before her departure with my sister in tow, she made sure that I had been properly sanitized. She then laid out my entire outfit with careful instructions for my dad. Luckily for him, the warm spring weather meant that leotards would not be involved, saving him from the hours of scrunching, stretching, tugging, and jumping up and down required to successfully stuff a squirming munchkin into a ridiculously tiny pair of tights. Little ruffled lace socks with dress shoes were all that would be required. I also used to wear a little pixie cut back then so he was spared the extra drama of having to comb through loads of tangled tot hair and affixing little baubles in the appropriate location. All in all, he had it pretty easy.
Much easier than my mom, who despite her required departure early that morning, was saddled with the additional responsibility of hosting a family party for no less than seventy-five people immediately after the church service had ended. Even though the church was located twenty minutes away from her house and that starving relatives would be arriving in droves, she managed to keep her cool. Knowing the local back roads meant that she would be able to cut most of them off at the pass, beat them back to our house, and have a beautiful buffet ready and waiting for them when they arrived moments later. She knew she could handle it like a pro as long as she wasn't delayed by an Amish horse and buggy. Despite the fact that she had been up half the night preparing crudites and an arsenal of salads ranging from ambrosia to potato and everything imaginable in between. Despite the fact that she had spent hours carefully rolling cold cuts and artfully arranging them along with a variety of sliced cheeses on platters. Despite the fact that she had made so many yeast raised sandwich rolls the day before that her fingers would still cramp up into little claws if she wasn't careful. Despite the fact that she had rolled, cut out, and decorated no less than twenty-two dozen delicate sugar cookie crosses along with baking up a zillion other batches of chocolate chip, peanut butter, and oatmeal raisin varieties. Despite the fact that the crock pot was probably bubbling away with some deliciousness and true to form, she had finished frosting the First Communion Party Cake at five-thirty that morning. It was all under control. After all, it was nothing that a little well-placed dollop of concealer and an extra coat of mascara couldn't hide.
For this particular occasion, my mom had given me a choice of three outfits, I had chosen a pretty pink party dress and could not wait to put it on so that I could flounce around the house in my lovely little frock. My father was given strict instructions not to bring that dress anywhere near my little body until approximately five minutes before we were ready to walk out the door. There was to be no snacking in the car en route to the church, and the seatbelt had to be placed ever so carefully so as not to permanently wrinkle the delicate pink fabric of my special occasion dress.
Unwilling to risk inadvertently causing extra work for my already overtaxed, overtired mother, my dad followed her exact instructions to the letter. Lucky charms finished. Faces wiped. Chompers brushed. Hair combed. Five minutes until departure. Party dress on. Little lace socks folded just so. Patent leather shoes carefully polished and buckled. It was at this point that my dad realized that he himself was still sporting his manly bathrobe. Distracted by the details of dressing his daughter, he had nearly left the house in the male equivalent of a housecoat and slippers. I was too busy skipping around the house in my fluffy party dress and my clickety-clackety dress shoes to take notice of any wardrobe issues that my father might be experiencing. I skipped down the hall, right on the heels of my dad's still-slippered feet, humming a little tune. When we reached my parent's bedroom door, a moment of panic crossed over my dad's normally calm, cool, and collected forehead.
He had to excuse himself for a moment in order to slip into his dress shirt, tie, and suit. In that very second, he realized exactly why they tell mothers on airplanes to put on their own oxygen mask before assisting their children or others. He knew that in the three minutes it took him to throw clothes onto his body, anything could happen. He should have dressed himself first but now was not the time for second thoughts. He gave me careful yet stern instructions not to leave the confines of the hallway. He then slammed the door and I heard a crazy ruckus inside as he rushed around the room to put clothes on his body before anything ridiculous could happen to me or my pretty pink party dress. He actually managed to get his pants on and tuck in one half of his dress shirt before he was interrupted by the high pitched wailing that had suddenly broken out on the other side of the door.
For a nanosecond, he froze, contemplating what he might actually find when he opened the door. A nasty rug burn from a hallway skipping accident? A torn sock? A broken shoe buckle? Oh, God. What if it was puked-up Lucky Charms all over the front of the party dress. He knew he should have gone with the safer breakfast option of cinnamon toast. Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw when he finally flung open the bedroom door. I was standing halfway down the hallway sobbing uncontrollably. Dad quickly began his fatherly assessment using a pre-prepared checklist of ten items that he kept in his head expressly for this kind of unfortunate scenario. Tears. Lots of tears. No blood. No vomit. No pee. No poop. No scrapes. No cuts. Two eyes. Ten fingers. All teeth accounted for. Insert gasp of extreme shock now.
That gasp happened at the precise moment when he noticed the long pink swath of material that was laying in a crumpled heap at his feet. His eyes followed the trail of petal pink satin down the hall, half of which was still attached to my waist. In his haste to dress himself before I was able to ruin my wardrobe, he had shut the hem of my dress in between his bedroom door and the door frame. When I spun on my heels to skip down the hallway, carefully keeping his instructions in mind, I heard a tremendous rip. With the bottom of my dress precariously pinched in the door, half of the gathered waist had been pulled away from the rest of the dress and was now lying on the hallway floor. I was heartbroken and hysterical over the untimely demise of my once perfect little pink party dress. The top half of the dress had remained in tact but the skirt had been hopelessly ruined.
Of course, I had other wardrobe choices, but my mom had chosen this specific dress for the occasion and my dad did not want to deviate from her detailed instructions. He scrambled through my mom's sewing supplies in search of salvation. For a moment he considered the staple gun, followed by the hot glue gun, but he quickly deemed both choices to be far too risky to attempt on his fidgety, flustered little girl. Due to the nature of the tear and its precarious location, any repairs would have to be done while the dress was still on my body. Attempting to remove it would only cause further damage to the delicate article of clothing.
I stood in the middle of the hallway wailing at the top of my lungs, certain that my dress was forever ruined, noting the panic that had immediately washed over my dad's face. If my mom had been there, I know that she could have made it all better. With a few quick stitches, she could have me back in business but to my knowledge dad didn't dabble in any arts and crafts, except wood-whittling, which was of no help here. I mean I'm sure he could have carved a wooden button and even sewn it on if need be, but even I knew that this kind of extensive repair would require no less than sixteen buttons and that there was positively no time for that. I had no idea how we were going to fix this whopper of a wardrobe malfunction.
I was only aware of one instance when my dad had taken the mending into his own hands during an emergency situation at work. While bending down to assess some kind of mechanical breakdown in the garage where he worked, the tired old seam of my dad's work pants had suffered a catastrophic blowout. Without a spare pair of pants and not wishing to expose his gutchies to the whole shop, he grabbed two shop rags, a stapler, and disappeared into the bathroom. When he came back out, he had fashioned himself a new pair of pants. It was actually only a rough repair to temporarily patch up his old pants and avoid exposing his posterior for the remainder of the workday, but it did the trick. Impressive? Absolutely. Ingenious? Positively. A bit dangerous given the location of the staples? No doubt. Under no circumstances did I wish to be stapled into my dear little dress.
My dad tried to soothe my tears and calm me down. He gathered up the skirt of my dress and walked towards me down the hallway. "My dress is ruined! If mommy were here, she could fix it." I wailed. "Shhhhh! Don't cry." my dad pleaded. "We'll get you all fixed up here in a few minutes." "You will not." I howled. "You don't even know how to sew." "Yes, I do know how to sew." he chuckled. "No, you don't. You're lying to try to make me feel better." I sniffled. "Mommy is the only one who knows how to sew, and I don't want you to staple me." "For Pete's sake, I am not going to staple you." It's true he considered it for a brief moment before realizing in this particular case, it would never work. That's when I noticed that he had a needle in one hand and a spool of perfectly matching pink thread in the other. Before I could utter a single word of protest, he knelt down beside me and got to work quickly stitching the drooping waist of my dress back into its proper position. "Holy cow, Daddy. I didn't know you could sew!"
Truth be told his stitches were a bit wonky compared to the careful precise ones that I was used to seeing from my mom, but he fixed my dress so I didn't even care. No one else would have ever even noticed, except for the fact that I told every single person that I came across that day. I excitedly recounted what had happened that morning and how dad had been able to fix me right up, including insisting that they examine my dad's handiwork with a needle and thread. On the way to the church, my dad explained that mommy had a lot to do today so we should probably wait until later to tell her about the dress. I agreed. When we finally arrived at the church with five minutes to spare, my mom carefully checked us both out from head to toe, pleased that we both looked fetching and that my dad had followed her exact instructions.
She kissed me on top of the head when she met us in the back of the church and whispered in my ear. "You look so very pretty, dear. Did Daddy do a good job helping you get ready this morning?" It was really meant to be a rhetorical question as obviously everything had turned out as expected and both my dad and I seemed to be visions of loveliness. "He did." I whispered back as we hurried towards our assigned pew. "And did you know Daddy could sew?" I knew I wasn't supposed to tell my mom yet but I was so proud of my dad that I couldn't contain myself for one more minute. I wanted to tell her what a great job he did, but there was no time. "What do you mean?" she asked. She must have been just as surprised as me because her eyes got really big when I explained how dad had accidentally ripped the bottom of my dress off when he shut it in the door five minutes before we got in the car to come to the church. I told her not to worry though because he was able to sew my dress back together before we left and he didn't even have to use the staple gun or the hot glue gun or anything.
Unfortunately, she didn't have time to respond because at that precise moment, the organist began to play the entrance hymn and we turned to see my sister floating down the aisle in her beautiful white First Communion gown, wearing a lovely crown of white flowers with long satin ribbons streaming behind her. I think for a split second I caught my mom winking at my dad. I imagine that she, too, must have been impressed by his secret sewing skills. Either that or she was giving him the stink eye. From my angle, it was hard to tell, but I don't know how she could ever be mad at him. After all, he was able to save the day at the last minute and he still got us to the church with a few minutes to spare. He even remembered to plug in the crock pot, so what if it was after we had already pulled out of our driveway.
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