Lily in her newest Disney princess dress.
22 March 2008

Kids are wonderfully transparent.  By the time we are adults, we have learned to hide or disguise our emotions.  And all of our hidden emotions cook inside of us and eventually bubble up, sometimes in unpleasant ways.

But not children.  Angry, sad, happy, scared… it’s all right there in your lap.  It makes it much easier to work with them.

And sometimes, like in the picture above, their transparent emotions will make you smile and smile.  Lily had been asking for the Geselle dress for awhile, but I told her that we would wait until it went to the sale rack.  Well, I soon realized that it would not make it to the sale rack.  In fact, by the time I agreed to buy it for her (it was still at full price, but the dresses were not staying on the shelves), there were none left locally and we had to drive to the Disney store at the San Marcos outlet mall (an hour drive) as it was the only store that still had a dress in her size.

But when she put it on…  and Matt photographed her beautifully happy expression when she wore her dress… it was definitely worth the trip.  She felt so special.  I do not have a single dress that makes me feel that special, that encourages the expression that she has.  And, sadly, if I did have a dress that made me feel like that, I would probably feel embarrassed and hide the emotion.

In many ways, we would do well to emulate children.

Ps. That dress was $50, not counting the money spent on fuel to get it.  When Matt watched her happily float around the house in her new dress which is the bridal dress from Enchanted, Matt said, “I’ve just had a vision of my future.  She is going to want a really expensive wedding.” 😉