The Pageant

People are constantly saying that Kayla is "model beautiful." Well, I don't really care about model beautiful unless the heart is model beautiful, too. Kayla successfully finished Teen Court with a sufficiently okay attitude, so I told her she could enter the local Sunburst Pageant, but that I was only going to pay for the basic contest and if she wanted to enter any of the extras, she could earn the money for it. She was not motivated to do that, so she had to stand there not getting any medals while the other three in her age group received best eyes, best hair, best smile and so on. I really think they should have the ones who don't enter the extras exit the stage so it doesn't look like they just didn't get any medals.

Besides Kayla being in the pageant. Winter, River and Jessica were in it. Jasmine has has a bad rash on her neck and around her eyes, so she didn't do it. Thankfully it is healing finally.

Winter was the only one is her category, so she was obviously first. She was not entered in all the extra categories.

Winter wasn't sure she wanted to be a winner.

There was one other little girl in River's group. Since River did not enter the extras, the other little girl got all the medals. Since she was the only child to get all the medals in an age group, she took overall for the whole pageant. She was a very cute light brown toddler with great hair and a great personality, so she would have been my favorite anyway. Since she got overall, River got first.

The next age group up had several little girls. One girl had a much more plain dress than the others. I overheard a conversation between the girl and her mom. The girl was complaining that another girls with a very fancy white dress  that bellowed out like a southern belle dress was going to win because she was prettier and her dress was prettier etc. This 8-year-old was majorly stressed, which was sad. But the mom informed her that the other girl wasn't that pretty and that the dress was very expensive. I just had to shake my head.

I think they all look fine, I hate that this age group was so stressed. And the moms were taking all this very personally.

There were four girls in Kayla's category. Both Kayla's dress and shoes were much less fancy, were used and cost me less than $5 total! No one paid much attention to her since she didn't get any medals. They didn't know it was because we hadn't entered those categories. But they did pay attention when she took first for her age group. The looks on those other moms' faces were priceless. I had the graciousness not to crack up laughing.

There was no one in the next age group up, which would have given it to Jasmine if she had entered. And then Jessica was the oldest, and the oldest in the pageant so she also got first by default. 

So our crew will go on to state Memorial Day weekend. Kayla's attitude and actions have slipped a bit since the pageant so she will need to think carefully about what is most important to her.

I had to leave before the final photos to get back to the shop so Tyler could go to his other job, so I don't have as good of photos as I'd like. I also had people walking into my photos.

But overall it was an interesting experience, and it has given me a great idea for a young adult book.

Anyone else have pageant experience?