My Daughters’ Dress

Before my first daughter was born, I was determined to make a dress for her.  I wanted to have it made in time to make the Christmas-announcement deadline of the coming arrival of a new grand-daughter.  As it turned out, I wound up buying a pink baby dress and wrapping it up under the tree for grandmas and grandpas to open (one of our more creative announcements, if you ask me).  That gave me the last half of my pregnancy to select fabric and a pattern and construct a piece of clothing I had waited seven years to have a reason to make.

We all wait for things in life.  Sometimes those things come before we are ready, and sometimes they come long after we are ready.  Sometimes they come after we stop caring about them at all; then we hardly notice we got what we were waiting for.  This dress, however, and the little baby girl that was going to wear it for the first time, were long-awaited.  Believe me when I say this dress was constructed out of pure mother love.  And they say mother love for a newborn is the purest there is because absolutely nothing is expected in return.  Every stitch was a little message to my daughter: “Mommy loves you”(especially on that hand-stitched rose garland).

Unfortunately, Anna only got to wear it once or twice before her chunk-o-love arms would no longer fit inside the banding at the base of the puffed sleeve.  Alas, all that time, money, energy and love for only two wearings.  I was a little heart broken when that petite dress had to be packed-up in the baby box labeled “baby girl clothes 0-3 mos.”.  Thankfully I had a reason to unpack it, run it through the wash and hang it on a tiny pink hanger about four months ago.  I think the only thing better than making this dress for my first daughter was being able to dress my second daughter in it, as well.  I feel like Job whose blessings were doubled at the end of his trials.  And what beautifully adorned little blessings they are.