Queen Mom

So I know that it has been a very long time since I have blogged. I’ve slapped my own hands so you don’t feel like you have to. Although I don’t like excuses, my priority for the past few months has been fulfilling the duties of Queen Mom. Now, I said it once before that I have been a queen myself (holding the exact same title at the exact same age as my daughter), a pageant photographer, a pageant director, and a pageant judge – but nothing is harder than being a queen mom.
This story of my Queen Brittany’s preparation for the Miss Illinois County Fair Pageant and it didn’t start last summer, it started 20 years ago. In 1991, I was the Director of the Clinton County Fair Pageant and pregnant with my second child when I traveled to the Miss Illinois County Fair Pageant with my first Queen, Miss Sharilyn Criley. So, I truly believe that she was being prepared for this event long before she was born. Up until the age of 9 or so she watched me plan and prepare girls for the county pageant and state pageant. You see, Brittany is the kind of kid who always observed and took everything in. She was a visual learner, we knew this from little on. She did, however, have a bit of a temper in her early years. I remember having to tell her “no crying, no whining, and no throwing fits” before we would go anywhere. As long as she knew the rules, she was fine, but she was certainly going to show her personality wherever she went. Her grandmother had a way to teach her lessons, she used to teach her patience by telling her that we were working on her shopping skills, and tell her to “suffer in silence for beauty sake” . Her grandfather taught her, and all of us, that “the impossible just takes a little longer”. Brittany always had her own sense of style, she loved to dress herself from a very young age. It didn’t really matter if it matched or if it were stylish, it just mattered if she liked it. One of her early loves was shoes, she dearly loved shoes, and she loved to dress up and she loved hats. What a wonderful, quirky, fun, humorous, creative kid she was. Now, I could go through the years of grade school and jr high school and tell you about all the normal “fitting in” trials and tribulations of growing up, but I’m sure that many of us have a carbon copy story of girls who had the “better than” attitude. Once she got to high school, Brittany was slowly becoming Queen Brittany. Her style began to show, she was definitely unique and became very organized. She never really cared about the drama of high school. She suffered with acne, sometimes very severe acne. She went through several doctors, medications and topical treatments and two courses of acutane. For anyone who knows the routine, knows that each treatment is 5 brutal months of medication and staying out of the sun and side affects. The first course gave her relief for about 2 years, the second, not even a year. Now, I don’t want anyone to think that any of this was in preparation for the pageant - I am certainly not one of those “toddlers in tiaras” moms, this had to do with the self- confidence and comfort of my daughter. Not much consideration had really been given to the pageant thing except, if it is something she wanted to do, she would definitely wait until she has had at least a year of college. As a senior in high school, my sister, Karen, my niece, Katie, Brittany and I traveled to Springfield, to the Miss Illinois County Fair Pageant because it was the 50th Anniversary and past queens were invited to attend. This is the first time Brittany and Katie got a taste of what happened at the state level. Katie decided to run in the Clinton County Fair pageant that year and did a marvelous job. We got to be a part of “Team Katie” that year. Brittany loved everything about it but still hadn’t completely decided to run the following year. So she began the first year of college and living away from home in the dorms. College was a great experience for her. One class that helped her greatly was a speech class. After, finishing with that class, she had the confidence she needed to speak in front of an audience. In January of 2010 Brittany decided she definitely wanted to be in the pageant. And, so the 6 month preparation for the pageant began. The dress was the first obstacle, lots of on-line searching and a few shopping trips later, we found “The Dress” . Just like when she was little, I could tell exactly what dress was her favorite when she put it on. She had a great group of people to help her and I found my place as coach, mom, and paparazzi. We stayed up nights working on interview questions. We practiced modeling and talking on the microphone, rehearsing the speech till it was perfect. Brittany really loved every minute of the competition. She made lists and crossed off every task. She was determined, but very aware of the competition. Most of all she had fun and it showed. She was absolutely radiant on stage and nailed her speech, and she walked away with the title of Miss Clinton County Fair. She had no idea that this was just the beginning of the fun. She soon found out that the title is what you make it. She participated in every facet of the fair, from entering her artwork and taking blue ribbons to pulling a truck in the truck pull and taking 7th place. She would stop at every chance to have a picture taken or talk to a new friend. She attended every fair pageant that she possibly could, (one day she even went to two), to promote our fair. She has truly enjoyed every minute of being the Fair Queen from attending the State Fair to being a guest speaker at the Jr. High School for Red Ribbon Week to participating in parades around the county. She became a bargain shopper, finding just the right dress, shoes and accessories for every function. With help she put together the most amazing scrapbook of her reign, at it took top honors at the Southern Zone Meeting of the Illinois Association of Agricultural Fairs.
It was time to begin preparations for the big event. Shopping, working on a speech topic and practicing interviews. I remember telling her after Christmas that the pageant doctor called and prescribed 2 interviews a day and without hesitation she said – and the side effects are upset stomach and nausea. We had six months to prepare and all the sudden we were down to two weeks, how does that happen? There was something to do every day in order to be ready. Speech – check, gown – check, swim suit ( or as I refer to it- a costume for the beauty and physic portion of the competition, because a swim suit doesn’t cost that much) – check, production number dress – check, additional clothing for rehearsals – check, shoes and accessories – check, one nervous girl – check, one proud mom – check. As it turned out her Brother Andrew’s fiancé Andrea works at an amazing salon Dominic Michael in St. Louis. It is on a list of the 100 best salons in the nation by ELLE magazine. Brittany was able to have her make- up done professionally by a make- up artist. Sarah is absolutely brilliant at her work! It was the last piece of confidence that she needed. At that time we were still trying to figure out how 6 months turned into 2 weeks. Queen Sharilyn had promised to join us to do hair for the trip to Springfield, even though she had recently moved to South Carolina. I asked Brittany if she had heard about the pageant contestant who had her make-up done by one of the top salons in the U.S. and flew her hair stylist in from South Carolina just for the state pageant. Her response was: NO WAY, I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT, oh wait…..that’s me . It was just a funny circumstance.
We packed and packed and packed. We even had to send some stuff up in another vehicle, but we were convinced that we had everything. And so the trip begins.
To be continued