Hello Lovies:
Today is Thursday and do you know what that means? IT’S THROWBACK THURSDAY!! WOOP WOOP! For This Thursday’s #TBT I present to you my precious *punim (major bangs and all) in either 3rd or 4th grade – on Class Picture Day!! First of all – looking past the mustard stain I got on my white blouse at lunch time (Who’s smart idea was it to have picture day after Lunch, anyway? Bad Idea!) look at that ensable I have on!! I mean, come on! It was literally my least favorite dress I owned but Mommy insisted I wear it for class picture day because – well there are a few reasons. 
Reason No. 1 – She loved it.
Reason No 2. – She loved it.
Reason No.3. – She loved it!
Reason No. 4 – She thought it was very studious with the apple and all.
Reason No. 5 – Mom thought it was the perfect little dress for the apple of her eye (after hearing my grandmother say the same thing).
Reason No. 6 – Did I mention she loved it?
It was fine. I secretly loved it too but only because the skirt part of the dress twirled out very far when I spun around. At that age and even today I measure my love for a dress for how far it will flair out when I spin around. True Story. I guess it just has something to do with my ballerina roots or always dreaming on being a princess after watching Rodger’s and Hammerstein’s “Cinderella” with Leslie Anne Warren. All of the gowns took my breath away!
However, going into school on this very given day was a lot to handle. Although looking back, this dress is pretty adorable, at the time I was mortified. I didn’t want any of my classmates and friends to see me in this major dress. Everyone else was dressed in other outfits that were too cool for school and here I was looking like a schoolmarm. I pretended I was extremely proud of my look but of course my one big bully had to come over to me and poke fun at the fact I was wearing an apple on my chest and collar. I just brushed it off by saying “How many of your parents take you shopping for clothes in New York City? Oh, none of you! That’s right!” Which actually made somethings worse but shut some of the others up. Ya win some – ya loose some, right? Right!! As for the rest of the day. All of the teachers complimented my outfit and told the rest of the class they should have come dressed as nicely as I did for picture day. Once again making all of my classmate’s attention draw directly to me. At this point I didn’t even care. I just wanted to take the picture and get it over with, go home and change. Mostly because I got mustard on my shirt and I knew my mom would have had a cow. But also, because my white tights were giving me a wedgie and I couldn’t wait to take them off! (hahaha)
Even though I wasn’t the biggest fan of this dress, it was on this very day that I learned to defend myself in the fashion arena. I learned that I should stand up for myself and not allow anyone to make fun of me for what I was wearing because I would never do that to someone else. Being bullied for an outfit I was wearing was only small potatoes compared to some of the other bullying I received by one girl in my class but I knew at this very moment that it all stemmed from pure jealousy. Silly jealousy, that should not have even existed. I honestly didn’t even know how being jealous felt and tried to make myself at an early age understand the feeling, but this was very difficult. I was always one that was happy for someone if they had something, even if I didn’t have it or if I wanted it. If it made them happy, that’s all I cared about. So for me to have a few people knock my dress while they were in a sweatshirt and jeans made me realize that they too probably wished they were wearing a dress. Maybe even ones with bananas or grapes on them.
As I sat to take this picture I heard little whisperes of unkind things being said which prompted me to feel more confident. I als0 realized that if someone had something unkind to say about me – they were just projecting what they felt about themselves on someone else, which was me. So, what did I do? I sat there in front of the camera pretending I was posing for the cover of a Girl’s Life Magazine and smiled the biggest most confident smile I could, without looking mental.
When I got home and my mom asked me why I was rushing to take off my dress – I paused and said to myself – “This is silly, I gotta twirl around one last 100 times before I take this baby off!” and that’s what I did. Then I told my mom what happened in school and about the mustard stain from lunch which was not as a big of a deal as I thought it was going to be because….dry cleaning!
So, that’s most of the story behind this picture. It’s amazing what our minds will remember, isn’t it?
Do you have a funny picture day story? I’d love to hear about it! Shoot me a comment below and follow me on all social media account for more daily fun!
@TheStyleSenders
* PUNIM = FACE in Yiddish *
xoxo Dara Senders – The Style Senders