One Hot Mess, Vol 6: Dress Mess

I don't know if you are my Facebook friend or not but if you are then you already heard the drama and you can skip, skippy, skip.

If you've hunted through the archives at all you probably know I am a convert to Catholicism. I had my first communion at the age of 23 along with the rest of my missing Sacraments, so preparing our eldest for her First Holy Communion was very new and exciting and strange and... new. And along with all of the deep and meaningful came also the more superficial e.g. the dress. No hand-me-downs of this sort exist in my bloodline so we needed something original and awesome (because, hello, First Communion! Catholic kids! World I never knew!).

We enlisted an amazing dressmaker from Seattle by way of New Mexico for the job. And the whole process went along swimmingly except for that the dress. never. came.

It was shipped and had been guaranteed (says USPS) to be delivered by Friday afternoon but then Friday afternoon showed up and no dress.

And by the time I tracked the package to our sweet little post office, it was closed for the day... only one evening and one morning before the Mass. (And then I cried.) I cried! Doesn't that seem so superficial? I had built up so much anticipation for this day and missing the dress by *basically a second was crushing. Not the most important thing, by far, but... still. Still!

The post office opened at 9 the following morning and we had to leave at 9:15 for the Mass. With a hope and a (many) prayer(s) we decided that we would show up as early as could and maybe maybe maybe we could get ahold of the dress with 3 minutes to spare. But what if the trucks were already loaded? What if they wouldn't release the package? What if it took them 20 minutes to find it? What if, what if, WHAT IF?

But, my dad. Grandpa of all grandpas.

My dad woke up at 6 o'clock the next morning, grabbed his coffee, and sat outside of the post office waiting for someone to enter or emerge, bound and determined to get his granddaughter her First Communion dress. (Can we get a collective aw here?)

And at 6:45 a kind and wonderful postal worker did, in fact, emerge, and my dad approached him, and explained the whole everything, and the kind and wonderful did as kind and wonderful's do.

A few minutes later, I got a call from the postal-saint in which I excitedly (most def too excitedly) confirmed that the package was indeed mine and that it indeed carried my firstborn's First Communion dress and that indeed the mass was at 10 am this very day and INDEED you are a kind and wonderful person. 

Indeed.

My dad dropped off the package at 5 minutes to 7. Amen.

And while the most spectacular part of the day was watching my girl receive this beautiful Sacrament, and while she could have done it in a trash bag and looked just as angelic...

she
was
so
lovely
in
this
dress.

I'll never forget it.

So, it all worked out just fine, but one, tense, (emotional) mess, right? Phew.

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