Nope, it's just her Dad carrying her kicking and screaming out of a church.  Is she ok?  Oh, wait, he's a suit and she - well she looks like the flower girl. 

It all started so well, Little Miss was primed to be princess, she loved her dress, loved her shoes and has never missed an opportunity to be the center of attention.  During the rehersal she did great, walked down the isle so nicely, came and sat with us when she was supposed to, and besides some general fumbling around looked prime for the show.  Since I've already told you the ending, I'll let you decide how bad it was.

The day of the wedding we learned that we need to be there 2 hours early to take pictures.  This means that we had to start her nap earlier - or try since finally fell asleep at her regular time which, of course meant, we had to wake her up to get her over to the church, which of course meant she is grumpy.  After much standing around and me stepping in to boss the hired help. "um, excuse me, aren't we supposed to be doing pictures, let's get crackin".  We get the photos underway.  Little Miss does a good job of standing and basically looking where she's supposed to for the photographer.  Every now and then we have to move her out of the way or keep her from running around, but overall photos are going well.  I'm breathing my first deep breath but know we've got a long way to go.  The photographers wanted to captures everything, so we did inside shots, we did balcony shots, we did stairway shots, we did outside shots, we take a break to clean off the brides dress since it got dirty during the outside shots (god was she pissed) and every once and a while we'd look over at our son to make sure he hadn't wandered off or set fire to anything.

By the time photos were done, it was time to get ready for the big walk down the isle. Hubby and I devised a divide and conquer strategy so one of us stayed with her in the wings and one was toward the front of the church so we could direct her nicely down the isle and hopefully prevent any running, skipping or other outlandish behavior.  It went great.  She came down holding her flower ball and making sure her and the ring bearer kept pace.  She waved at the people she knew which illiceted the ahhhs and smiles, and walked right to the front where she needed to be.  I was in the front of the church beaming and thinking, almost out of the woods, and yes people, she is my child and it's ok to praise hubby and I for such great parenting skills.

I should have known better than to breath a sigh of releif, we still had a ceremony to conduct, and she was no longer going to be the center of attention, all bets were off.  Did ok through the standing up front and only bothered one bridesmaid.  Then it came time to sit down and she had had enough.  Mommy, I want some water.  Shhhhh.  Mommy, look, there's the bride. Shhhhh.  Mommy, I want some water now.  The problem with this scenario was that it wasn't a wedding with lots of kids rustling around, it was a big church with big echo and all adults except flower gril and ring bearer.  So when she said Mommy, there's the bride, it sounded like MOMMMY THERE'S THE BRIDE.  and me being in a oh my gosh my family is judging me panic heard AMY CAN'T CONTROL HER KID.  I handed her starbursts hoping the chewing would keep her mouth shut.  Nope.  I gave her her pacifier hoping it would keep her mouth shut.  Nope.  After what seemed like forever, I finally turned to hubby and said in my most fierce whisper "get her out of here".  He took her hand and walked her to the back of the church and just as the doors closed I heard "NOOOOOOOOooooooooooooo" 

Thank good hubby has some sense and realized that there were good odds if he stayed in the buidling she would still be heard.  So he went outside where apparently they stopped traffic with her carrying on.  Later that night people told me they thought she looked so adorable and did such a great job.  I would smile and say thanks, and then wait for the follow up.  It's a good thing you took her out when you did, that was very smart on your husbands part".  Yep, the backhanded compliment.

Really, it was ok, I just like it better when my kids are perfect, I was raised that way and plan to impose the same unrealistic expectations on my own kids.  Someday my daugher will demand the same of hers.  That night when she went up to give the bride a kiss, she looked solmenly in her eyes and said "I'm in trouble"  The bride laughed and said 'that's ok Little Miss, you did great, and I know I was just like you when I was a little girl'.  And she was. So I relaxed. The one person's opinon of Little Misses performance I actually cared about was the one who acted just like her when she was three, and they both knew it was fine just the way it happned.