Sunday, April 18, 2010

Prom

Last night was Harry's prom. JR was furious that he was not going to prom, which is the reason for his absence from the picture. (Harry is in the glasses and Jason's tux vest from Beijing. His friend with him, Tong, is also an exchange student from China.) I was super surprised when Harry told us he was going to prom, and excited that he was going with a group of friends. He then said that a friend at school (who is a girl) had invited him. I started asking him, "Is she your date? Did she just ask you or other people too? Are the others in your group going with dates?" Of course Harry didn't know the answer to any of these questions, and since I live in a house full of boys, nobody else seemed concerned either. I couldn't stand the thought of some cute girl standing there without a corsage and a date that didn't even know he was her date. I quickly reverted back to my 17 year-old-self (which wasn't very hard since that was only 8 years ago...No snickering!) and called our babysitter. In typical high school fashion, she told me she was friends with the girl's brother and would call him and find out the situation. Within a few hours I had confirmation that, yes, they were all going as friends, but Harry wasn't her date.
Crisis averted, but one quickly followed.
We (and I'm sure you know who "we" really was) then had to convince Harry that a Michael Jordan Nike T-shirt and cargo pants were not proper prom attire. I found myself having a total Stacy and Clinton moment pulling outfits from Jason's closet. Or was I Tim Gunn? Either way, I was fabulous. I couldn't have been more excited when Harry was willing to wear the Chinese vest. I did good, right?
As the boys were leaving I gave them a heart-to-heart about how they should dance with the girls who weren't dancing cause the girls would really want to dance. I guess Harry took my advice because he told me he was leading the "dance train", which I'm pretty sure is his translation for conga line. And in my book conga line leader = successful night! Woohoo!

5 comments:

Friedt Family said...

Good work Jan! He looks very nice and I'm sure his friends appreciated him not showing up in a t-shirt...especially since he lead the dance line!

Anonymous said...

I think Harry is getting Americanized. He looks great! Dad

GS said...

Oh my, you are getting in practice for the years to come!! And I must say, doing a very good job of it. He looks great, you should have been in the picture as the proud stand-in Mom, or is that pushing you luck just a little to far.

Unknown said...

That is so awesome. And, can I say that as a former high school girl, I vivedly remember the foreign exchange students at the dances. The guys were totally fought over! So, no worries, I am sure Harry was the beau of the ball!

Jamie Jo said...

Oh my goodness! I remember when our exchange student (my "first" child) went to prom when she lived with us. I was so proud of her. . .and I think Andy even gave her the obligatory and fatherly pre-Prom "lecture." So funny! We were only five years older than her! :)