How we dance now





So Friday was the daddy daughter dance at school. It was renamed the "young ladies winter ball" Baby girl wanted to go but didn't want to go, you can rename something but everyone still knows what it is and calls it by its old name. You can read about her genius plan to get herself there by clicking  here.

So we went. I volunteered to man the greeting table, Baby girl got a new dress and shoes. I tried to have grandma take our picture before we left and Baby Girl didn't want to. At first she just wanted to stay with me at the table, which was fine. Then her friends came and she ran off and played with them.

A couple times she came back to me "Mommy my friends won't dance with me they just want to dance with there daddy's" What do you do with that? Of course they want to dance with their daddy's. It's the daddy daughter dance. Baby Girl doesn't have her daddy to dance with anymore. "Can mommy come dance with you? Mommy would love to dance with you"  "No I just want to sit here with you" ok so we did. My friend from the PTA was sitting with me and she was good. She started this conversation "I've seen quite a few moms here tonight. Thats good, I'm glad the girls got to come with there moms."  "Ya I reply, I saw some grandpas too" "O and uncles, I wonder ow many people here are uncles, I bet a lot."  Of course Baby Girl was pretending like she wasn't listening as she listened to us have this conversation.

There were quite a few moms there. By quite a few I mean maybe 10 or so. But 10 is noticeable, 10 is not one. We were not the only ones. Now those dads are likely not dead, but for whatever reason they didn't come. We had one mom come up to us thanking us so much that she changed the name and that she could bring her daughter instead of her awful ex husband.  She said "who's idea was that" my friend said "O it was Jenny's idea" uh no not my idea, but I was defiantly all for it. Funny how your perspective on things changes, just a few short years ago I was excited for the daddy daughter dance for baby girl to go with her daddy. Another mom was also glad she could take her daughters this year.

Baby Girls besties dad came and sat with me for a little while. "we are really glad your here, Baby Girls friends are really glad she came this year." "Ya I know, but it's so hard" "We know it is, just keep taking baby steps, shes doing better." A friends dad noticed how hard Baby Girl is trying. That's significant to me.

They had a photo booth. One free picture with your adult escort. At first Baby Girl didn't want to have her picture taken with me but near the end she said "mommy do you wanna go take a picture?" and we did.

Baby Girl came running out of the gym. "mommy mommy the dance is almost over. It's the last song, you gotta come dance with me!" ok. So I went and danced with My Baby Girl. The DJ in fact played three more songs and we danced to all of them. Her friend and her dad dancing beside us. We swayed and spun. We ood and awed at the pretty lights. Her friends dad picked up his daughter and spun her around in circles as fast as she could. His daughter grinned from ear to ear, so happy to be spinning with her daddy. Dan would have done that with Baby Girl if he were here. I did not. I haven't been able to pick up baby girl in over a year, shes grown too much. Daddy's dancing with there daughters all around us. A small handful of moms.  We belong there in our school, but it's different now, Life is different now, we are trying to find the baby steps to help us belong but we will always be different. We miss our daddy, we wanted him there. I wanted to have them come home and tell me how much fun they had together.  I wanted her to spin around with her daddy grinning from ear to ear.

I wrote a book about my grief, you can read it here: Carry on Castle

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