fashion | Lessons from my daughter

I love this time of year.

Fall is beautiful, the leaves are turning all kinds of pretty red and yellow shades.

The weather is cool, sometime border line cold.

It’s perfect weather to be cooking up a feast.

It’s the perfect time to go apple picking.

My friend Lise is a photographer. She takes amazing pictures of things and places…. I am sure there is a word for that type of picture, I just don’t know. what it is. (Remember, my mother tongue is French, there are English words I still don’t know) Currently, she’s working on adding people to her repertoire so I offered up Emily as a subject :).

We were meeting at the Belliveau Orchard right after lunch today. It was my first visit there and Emily had been once before with school.

http://www.vergerbelliveauorchard.ca

We got there at 12:30

The apple picking season is short so this was a busy place today with a 22 Celsius weather.

It took us a good half hour to make it through the gate. We stood in line and watch the kids play on the hay bales.

Emily didn’t ask to go play with them. Too many kids and a whole lot of opportunities to get hurt. It’s amazing how I now see this… I guess that’s a perk of being a parent of a child with mobility challenges.

They have a corn maze there too but that didn’t attract us so off we went to pick some apple.

Emily was listening to Lise quite well.

This was our way in the orchard.

My beautiful daughter played the role of model really well for Lise.

I got to take some pictures too.

We even managed to convince Emily to lay down in the orchard. Now considering her lack of desire to even walk bare feet on grass… to have her accept to do this was quite an accomplishment.

After all that hard work, it was time to test the quality of our apples.

20lbs of yummy Cortland apples for me to make apple sauce and apple crumble.

My house will smell delicious shortly!

I love autumn! It’s my favorite season!

What’s your favorite season?

I am sure I am to blame for this!

I have always encouraged Emily to make her decisions with regards to her clothing.

I gave her some ground rules, I have been repeating them for at least 13 years now!

1. No cleavage showing (until you are at least 35 🙂 )

2. No mid-section showing (EVER!)

3. Track pants are for the gym

and at some point I had to add…

4. Pyjamas are for bed time

Those are the rules!

With that being said, on Saturday afternoon, after her shower, Emily came to the living room wearing this:

Beautiful! But not really a staying at home doing nothing special outfit… It lasted maybe 15 minutes than she realized it wasn’t really comfortable and changed.

Here are some other Emily picking her clothes highlights!

I never said “limited jewelry”!

Pretty dress and crown at school!

Orange phase

Pink phase with awesome cowboy boots

I know, you are thinking short skirt….. actually skort!!! skirt in the front, shorts in the back!!!

She liked the dress and decided to wear it

Glasses, no prescriptions! It lasted maybe a month

Biker chick without the biker boyfriend or the bike…. thank goodness!

Pretty dress over pants or leggins. Little vest. I love that look on her

This almost looks too old for her

I loved her pixie cut! Cute dress again!

Long to the ground summer dress

Please don’t get out of the house like this outfit…. She’s not breaking any rules so she did go out like this! Pink tank top, purple thingy to wear over a swimsuit, pink mexican top worn as a skirt and hard to see on the picture but still… grey leggins with skulls on them!

Of course this is just a sample, she has many more looks. Every morning as she walks in her new high school she receives an onslaught of compliments from the educational assistants.

“Wow, you are mixing lime green and purple, this is so pretty”

“Oh, I love your boots”

“What a nice scarf”

“I need to go shopping with you”

“What a beautiful dress”

And so on!

I did this, I created a little monster who likes to wear pretty clothes and matches them up pretty well (most of the time). I remember Emily being little and my mom telling me to stop spending money on clothes. Over the years, my answer stayed the same.

Emily will forever struggle with being accepted, she might be made fun of for being slower, for being different but she won’t be picked on for her clothes. That’s the one thing I can give her. I can do this for her.

She is now capable to see in a change room which clothes work well with her figures and which don’t. It’s no longer just about how it looked on the hanger. I am extremely proud of her for seeing the difference on pretty on the hanger and fabulous or non-fabulous on her.

We have built her self-esteem so high that she can wear that last outfit but I do prefer something more like this one!