More Dresses From The Dump

Ahhhh, summer vacation! Finally, 5 weeks of freedom from kindergarten, which I will spend the majority of hiding in the chilled confines of my A/C-filled apartment with my screamy toddler, is here. No teaching, extra time with Raelynn...AND no MIL. Most of the time, anyway. My husband has invited his parents over for dinner tonight. And they'll have some opportunity to spend time with Raelynn when I want to meet up with friends or have a date with my husband that doesn't involve tantrums and incessant interruptions.

Summer. My chance to dress Raelynn the way I want to dress her without some old troll redressing her into a rag from the donations bin while I'm away. Speaking of rags, remember that one rag that "disappeared?" Jeremy asked me if I'd seen a white skirt. I'm sorry, but that is barely white. And it's no skirt. Not that either one of them would know that. I can't blame my husband...he's a man. What does it matter if he confuses dresses and skirts? Now, MIL on the other hand SHOULD know these things. But she doesn't. Of course, you shouldn't be surprised. Anyway, I played dumb, which I feel horrible about. But I'm tired of things going like this:
Me: "Your mother brought over some horrible rag to dress Raelynn in. She looks like a mutant."
Him: "She's old. And she's not a mutant."
Me: "No, Raelynn looks like the mutant in that rag. Your mom is...something else."
Him: "My parents do so many things for our family. You just don't appreciate them."
Me: "What does that have to do with this? And what does them being old have to do with anything anyway?"

And on and on and ON it goes until I want to scream and flail my arms as I run down the street. I don't think the Chinese people in this neighborhood could possibly stare at me more than they already do though. I love my husband dearly but I absolutely hate it when he just doesn't have my back. It's always his parents' needs and wants. Though he did put his foot down when they wanted to live with us when Raelynn was born, and for that I am eternally thankful.

So forgive me, dear husband, that I pretended not to know where that one rag was. I knew. I just let it hang out under the crib for a week until my vacation so I could wash it myself and then hide it in the closet. Then Raelynn might only get stuck wearing it once or twice more before the fall weather starts and with any luck, she'll have totally outgrown it by next summer (or MIL will forget all about it when I move the summer stuff into our storage bags so we have more room for the winter stuff).

MIL obviously isn't too upset over that rag. Because during my last week of school, I came home to find Raelynn dressed in this:

This is actually MUCH better than the rag that I made vanish temporarily. I want to like it. Really. I do. I almost like it. What's my problem with it? Well, it looks a bit worn, doesn't it? This is after I washed it and hung it to dry so it looks much nicer than when I first saw it. But it looks like it has been washed a lot because it has those little balls of fuzz on the white knit part of it.

Also, it says something in rhinestones which I could do without, honestly. I can't even figure out what it says. It's missing some rhinestones. I know MIL didn't just buy this thing. She either dug it out of the trash, stole it off another child or, based on the other raggy dress, I really suspect she had this and the other dress last summer and kept them at her house. Then when she'd take Raelynn over to her smelly, non-air-conditioned home, she'd throw her in one of these things. Knowing MIL, it makes a ton of sense.

 Can you figure out what this says? Me neither!

 All that aside, THIS is my major problem with this dress. You'll notice it has a zipper part on the side which is unzipped but it doesn't go to the edge of the fabric. The edge of the fabric is TORN. And frayed. It looks shitty. I don't know if you can tell from the photo, but someone took a few stitches to it in an off-colored thread which only adds to the demise of what was once a cute little dress.

 Maybe you can see that in these 2 shots as well...

You know what's extra annoying about this? MIL CAN SEW. She can sew very well, actually. I can put buttons back on and fix split seams but I'm no seamstress. I've no idea why MIL would not repair this as expertly as I've seen her repair other things. Yet another mystery about the old troll that we will likely never solve.