Baby's First Pageant

This happened a year ago, during the weekend of July 10-12, 2009, I experienced a new level of pageantry. It was fun and stressful all at once. Now I'm just happy this weekend is over. My family convinced me to enter my one year old into this pageant since my sister was going to be in it. The Missouri Coed pageant was held in Earth City, MO. The pageant had many age groups but I'm going to focus on the Infant and Toddler divisions. The Infant and Toddlers were judged on pretty in pink, formal wear and interview. They also had optional contests.

The two baby contestant categories were ages 0-19 months and they were called baby princess contestants. Ages 20months-3years old were called petite princesses. This pageant has been around for years but the coordinator for the state of Missouri wanted to include the little ones. The older girls are allowed to compete at state level and if they are the winner or finalist they can go to nationals, but the Infant and toddlers could only compete at the state level. The categories that are normally judged are personal introduction, formal gown and interview. Since babies aren't old enough for these categories they had a different required set of categories. The categories for babies were pretty in pink, formal wear and interview.

I wondered if the babies were going to be all over the place but they were fine. The first day of the pageant the babies wore pretty in pink, which was any clothing with pink on it. The contestants had additional contests to enter into which were red, white, and blue, photogenic, and fashion fun wear. The parents either carried the baby across the stage or held their hand and walked the child. Formal wear was judged later that night and they could use an escort instead of mom. The optionals were judged in between pretty in pink and formal wear. Optionals are different from the mandatory requirements for the main pageant. For an additional fee contestants enter optionals and these contests have no impact on the pageant scoring system.

Early in the day of the final pageant the contestants had an interview. The interview was based off of facial beauty and the babies wore their production number outfit. The production number outfit consisted of a pageant shirt with the name of the Missouri pageant, blue jean shorts, white socks and tennis shoes. The Infant and Toddlers were part of the dance number for the princess, sweetheart and preteen contestants. The final pageant went well and a baby and petite princess was crowned. My daughter did not win but this will be something to look back on in the future.

Lessons learned as a pageant mom were to not focus on winning but to focus more on the fun and opportunity. I should not get mad at other contestants because everyone is a winner. I will only enter pageants if money and the time is right. Last, but not least all babies are adorable.