Mack was born with the face and body of a sweet little cherub, and I could not resist the urge to dress her in over-the-top feminine frocks to match her ruby and oh-so-chubby cheeks. Perhaps because I suspected my window for so doing was to be a short one, I frequently chose outfits that even outdid the level of froufrou I had achieved with Mack’s way more girly-girl sister. But almost as soon as Mack could walk (at 8-months-old, by the way), she started to rebel against nearly every article of clothing I put on her. Her sister and I persisted in our efforts to girly-girl-a-tize our little Mackadoodle, but we ultimately failed…and thank goodness, really. Because looking back on our choices, I realize we certainly did overplay our hands.

By the time Mack was three, she screamed at skirts, ran away from dresses, claimed that frilly headbands “squeezed her brains,” and threw lacy anklet socks in the garbage when I wasn’t looking. But there was that one pink bikini with the strawberry appliques on the top and the little ruffle on the bottom that broke Mack’s no-stupid-superfluities-on-this-body determination and melted her anti-girly-girl grit. That ridiculous swimsuit beat all the tomboy odds against it. Mack wore it with joy. She sported it—big belly and all—with pride. Strawberry boobs, we called that bikini; and it ruled Mack’s wardrobe. She would put it on and smile from sea to sea, checking herself out in front of the bathroom mirror. The too-short bangs, which were just rebounding from being cut off at the root, completed the look of girl toddler magnificence. In her smashing strawberry swimsuit, Mack definitely strutted the preschool catwalk. One day after I helped her into that swimsuit for an afternoon in the backyard sprinkler, Mack proudly stood up, admired herself, ran her hands down her torso, and shared this heartfelt opinion: “I just love this zucchini!!” And love it she did during the entire summer of 1998.

I wish like hell I had better images of that bikini, but these poor quality snapshots are all that I could find.

For a long, long time afterwards, we teased Mack a lot about that bikini, and, fortunately, it stayed tucked in the back of one of Mack’s dresser drawers for years. When we packed for the move to St. Louis, it made it into the “keep” pile, because it had become such a funny fashion artifact of Mack’s life. She always thought it quite a hoot that she had once worn strawberry boobs with such panache. I still have the bikini today, tucked into an archival box with Mack’s baby blanket. Funny, these memories we keep. Funnier still the odd artifacts we retain in our human effort to document those memories and to hang on to the happy past for dear life.