"This is IT!" Revisited

My grand kids can hardly wait until the water in the pool reaches swimming temperature. They check to see what the temperature is every time they come. So last week, on the way home from having sleep over at our house, the great white hunter and I took them shopping for their annual "stay at Nana/Papa's house" swim suits. They were excited because it was Saturday and Papa was with us.

They each chose three suits to try on. All three of Julia's were one piece which was a surprise to me. She and the Mama had already had a tussle over a two piece suit that Mama said was lacking in fabric for her seven year old and Julia got second choice. Two of the suits had matching skirts and she liked that. Colin had a white pair with blue sharks and two different Spider man print.

Trying on the suits was quite the production. They each had to leave the fitting room and troop out to show Papa the suits.........all six of them. I just crossed my fingers that none of their bare toes got ran over by a wayward shopping cart.

Colin decided that he wanted the white ones with the sharks. The Spider man ones were "a little snug", he said.

The first suit Julia tried on was a coral color with a striped skirt that went over it. It had the same striped fabric on the top. She really liked it but wanted to try on the other two. Next came a blue green tie dye. Now this suit had NO back even though it was high in front.......it was cute. Last came a white suit with bead work on the top with a white tie on skirt.......she stood in front of the mirror and struck a pose, one hip stuck out, her hand on the other one. She turned, checked over her shoulder to see how it looked in the mirror from behind and said. "This is IT, but I need to go show Papa" and out the door she went.

I stood there amazed at how sure of it she was, how she knew at seven years old that she had found "IT". And then a flood of memories came back to me.............

My daughter (Julia's Mama) and I are looking at a white Jessica McClintock dress. I am telling her, "NO way, that dress costs too much" and she is telling me, "this is IT!" We were shopping for her a dress to wear in a Jr. High School debate competition. Oh yes, she got the dress but only after making a deal with the great white hunter that she would pay for part of it with her babysitting money.

The great white hunter and I are walking down a isle in a mall store, our daughter walking in front of us. We have come to the mall to look at a prom dress that she had seen earlier that day on a shopping trip with her friends. She runs to a rack and grabs a sapphire blue dress with a beaded top, and says, "This is IT!" We have great pictures of her and her date (Julia's Daddy) at the dance. She has her long hair in beautiful curls and the blue dress on with shoes dyed to match.

Next memory has my daughter and I in the dressing room, trying on the 20th plus white wedding gown of the day. I am so confused, mixing up stores, styles and prices. My brain is on over load because nothing has been just right. She slips the dress over her head, I zip it up and she turns around. I burst into tears at the sight of my baby girl in that dress. She smiles and says, "Well, I guess this is IT then." That was the dress she walked down the isle in on the great white hunters arm to marry Julia's Daddy.

We are in the baby dept of some store and I grab a tiny, frilly white dress off a rack of christening dresses and hold it up for my daughter to see. She says, "Oh yes, that is IT." My Julia has her first fancy dress.

One of my favorite quotes is "LIFE IS NOT MEASURED BY THE NUMBER OF BREATHS THAT YOU TAKE, BUT BY THE MOMENTS THAT TAKE YOUR BREATH AWAY." I do not know who said this, as my plaque doesn't have a author but to who ever, I say hear, hear! Best part of this grandparent thing is more of those moments to share.

This is "IT!"