Your First Lilly

Dear, dear Punchy,

Wherever you go in life, I hope you always remember how it felt to wear your first Lilly Pulitzer dress. Lilly is the height of chic, cheerful fashion.

I bought this dress with you in Chatham on Cape Cod this past Sunday. It was $78, which is a lot, but the state does send us a modest amount of money every month to take care of you. That covers some riding lessons, pink bike repairs, extra boxes of Cream of Wheat, the occasional miso soup and sushi--and a Lilly dress for sure.

You look so pretty in it. You just left for an afternoon visit with your Mom. None of us knows yet how your life story will go, the turns it will take. The priority is that you are safe and secure, wherever you are. But Punchy, Punchy, I hope and pray that nobody and nothing will ever erase how it felt to twirl in your first Lilly dress. The feeling of freedom and beauty--and privilege and grace.

In her wry wit, your big sister Figgy once said it was wrong of me to subject her to Lilly clothes when she was too young to know better or protest. She said that in the car on the Cape, when she was in her early teenage phase. She said it to make me laugh, and I did.

Well, Giod bless, and wear your Lilly in good health, little lady.

Love always, 

Alice/Alison/Alicee the names you call me

P.S.

I 'm wearing a favorite dress today, too, though it isn't a Lilly. You took a photo of me in it with my iPhone a few weeks ago:

And one Dan took of both of us: