My daughter just sent me a text with the most amazing news a parent wants to hear: She is engaged! Yes, engaged! Yes, texted. I don’t know what to say about that, except yay, millennial announcement of importance! I’m certain she’ll also drop me an airy declaration via phone when she becomes pregnant — way, way, way down the line. Or maybe she’ll just shoot me one of those stupid emojis.
It made me misty-eyed and nostalgic. I thought back to when my husband proposed to me on bended knee with a huge diamond engagement ring and enormous proclamations of love and devotion! Oh, wait. That’s not right. I’m thinking of the Kay Jewelry commercial. I keep forgetting I asked myself to marry me and actually put the diminutive ring on my own fat finger as I was contemplating my answer. I took a long time, but I finally accepted my proposal. My husband didn’t even need to be there, actually. He still doesn’t.
My husband and I are so happy. We love her fiance like he is one of our own sons. He is better behaved, more respectful and cleaner than either of our sons, I’ll tell you that. Much cleaner — not that it’s much of a challenge. He is well-spoken and polite and he looks at her with such adoration. I wonder if he has a much older brother. Uncle?
My daughter and I are polar opposites. Let’s just say she is more the mother and I am more the daughter. She is more serious about life, more grounded, more pragmatic and much, much more private than me. In fact, don’t tell her I wrote this column or she won’t invite me to the wedding.
Because she’s so private, she doesn’t like to give up details on life’s bigger events. But from what I can cobble together, she plans on having a longer engagement and a simple wedding. I’ve already made a list and started compiling ideas in a big folder labeled “Stool Sample Results ” so if she finds it, she’ll be too disgusted to look inside. I’m clever — as stealthy as a rhinoceros on steroids and Benefiber.
Wedding To Do List:
1. Begin skimming from grocery money to finance facial Botox overhaul.
2. Begin skimming from grocery money to finance varicose vein removal.
3. Research body makeup to cover-up my foot tattoo, or as I like to call it, my midlife crisis.
4. Watch “Say Yes to The Dress” marathon and mimic the faux excitement a mother shows when she hates the gown her daughter chooses. Maybe practice that expression in the mirror a few times a day: “Yay! Plunging neckline with ostrich feathers and crystals! So saucy!”
5. Discuss elopement as a serious option because weddings cost more than our first home. No joke.
6. Practice pageant walk which will have to double as my wedding aisle walk. Pretend I was actually in a pageant.
7. Make sure daughter is always in the dark about my plans for, say, the Chicken Dance and/or The Dollar Dance.
7. Investigate Pinterest and copy other people’s unique ideas for “Rustic Chic” wedding and pawn them off as my own.
8. Text her: “Promise to keep wedding opinions to myself” with a straight face emoji. Laugh and laugh and then plan how many tin cans I can tie to their back bumper as they squeal away from me, counting all the dollar bills from the Dollar Dance she never wanted.
I cannot wait.
