This past Saturday was my son's second ever toddler pageant. Having done one, I thought I was better prepared for what to expect. I'm an idiot.
My son's first pageant was a low-key affair; some kids and their parents in a hotel conference room, one outfit, one time onstage, and about 25% of the contestants were boys. My amazing little boy won (yay!), we got a plastic crown, a sash, and a couple of trophies, and were home in time for lunch. It was also a natural pageant, and I made a vow to only put him in natural pageants, as I feel that the glitz pageants aren't appropriate for children.
This past weekend's pageant was also billed as a natural pageant, though it did have an outfit-of-choice category, meaning that a clothing change would be required. The OOC was supposed to be Christmaswear, so I chose a pair of green corduroys, a red shirt with a few rhinestones (very macho, and I got it at Kid2Kid for $5), and an adorable black top hat that my husband sewed a snowflake onto. The hat made the outfit, and it was incredibly adorable. For the "beauty" portion, we just decided he would wear his suit, like last time.
The pageant was located in a town over 2 hours away, and registration opened at 10:00, so I was up before 6:00, double-checking that we had everything and packing extra toys, snacks, etc. My dad and mom came this time to provide a cheering section, so we all drove up together. In true toddler fashion, my son stayed awake most of the drive, and then fell asleep for the last 20 minutes. We had to wake him up to get him out of his carseat, and I was worried about how cranky he might be.
When we got to registration, it became obvious that we, the adults with him, were going to be the cranky ones. We were surrounded by toddler girls with their hair in curlers and moms carrying garment bags. When we got to the dressing room, it was a fog of hairspray and, "natural" pageant though it was supposed to be, there was plenty of make-up being applied, and even hairpieces being pinned in. I saw the surreal image of a little girl, not even school age, carrying a plastic box with her curly fake hair in it. Plenty of the little girls were crying, and I bristled when I heard one mom say, "Beauty is pain."
There are a few things people should know about me, not the least of which is my tendency to seize and obsess upon an idea. I'm intensely focused, to a flaw, but it's a trait that I can recognize in myself. When I found out I was pregnant, I knew it would mean I would someday be a "----- mom", whether that be "hockey mom", "band mom", "Science Olympiad mom", etc. Whatever my child was interested in, I would be invested, 100%.