Chica’s Freshman Year Homecoming!

Okay, peeps.

I’m about two weeks behind on this here blog, because…life. It’s just barreling onward, toward the wheels-off holiday season, yes??

As a refresher, the big ticket items of the past few weeks have been:

Little Man’s rowdy, racing-plus-sleepover b-day…

An epic, restorative, autumnal Mohonk reprieve…

A reflection on family vacationing with tweens/teens…

And, amidst all of that, we’ve been deep in the weeds of Little Man’s basketball season, Chicklet’s pre-athletics through school, and Chica’s never-ending, overwhelming homework and Fine Arts commitments.

BUT.

Last weekend, we had a glorious milestone-event to break up all the to-do’s and it was a smashing, low-key success!

Freshman Year Homecoming!

I’m thrilled to report that—like most things with this generation of kiddos—they just seem to do it better and more streamlined than “back in our day,” ha.

Maybe that’s just my perception as a parent unencumbered by a teen brain, but…these milestone moments that seemed so fraught when I was growing up just feel so fun for my eldest and her buddies.

Perhaps that’s the key: Chica has a really lovely, stable group of friends.

From the get-go, the planning and process seemed fairly stress-free.

For starters, at the kiddos’ massive High School (there are 700-800 in Chica’a graduating class), the actual dance isn’t really the thing.

In fact, we’d heard through the grapevine—and the girlies confirmed through experience—that it’s basically only Freshman that attend (perhaps as a right of passage?) and every year thereafter, groups of friends just do their own thing together: dress up, go eat, hang or do some sort of hysterical activity in semi-formal clothes.

Which means: dates aren’t really a super-big deal. In fact, only one amongst Chica’s group paired up with someone, and that lowered the angst, significantly.

Another stress-reducer: Chica’s friend hosted some primping time and picture-taking, and that was really the fun part, anyway. :) Especially against an epic, sunset backdrop!

All of us parents got to lurk and play paparazzi for a very willing and unselfconscious gaggle of girlies!

They took oodles and gobs of pics (I’ll only post a handful here, since it’s not quite as fun to see all the blurred out faces!). They all even posed happily for parent pics. :)

And, YES, the girlies were all wearing green! And it was only accidentally on purpose!! A few of them went shopping together and wound up with green, a few others followed suit, and—if you can believe it—a final few ended up green by glorious accident!

And since green is also the school color, it couldn’t have been more perfect!

One of the mothers who has older kiddos and knows the drill was brilliant enough to buy some flowers for small bouquets and they made for such beautiful pops of color amidst the ocean of green.

After the adorable and extended photo sessions, the crew was running so far behind and the restaurants they were interested had such long waits, they very happily decided to go off script—to Panera Bread, instead! Love, love, love.

After about an hour at the dance, we gathered them back up and deposited them at one of the houses for a sleepover. They decompressed and indulged in some quality time—something they all desperately needed—and Chica came home the next day, tired but content.

It’s beautiful to launch these new years and new traditions and celebrate them in a positive way.

So…here’s to many more happy Homecomings in the future!

Happy Saturday, peeps!

Over and out.