PHOTO GALLERY: What Did You Do This Weekend?

The drive was long, the traffic was moderately heavy, and my patience stretched for miles.

On Sunday my daughter Katie, her best friend Noel, her mom Monica, and I piled into my Nissan, which is in dire need of new struts, and we headed to Chicago to buy prom dresses.

Katie and Noel wanted to go to Chicago to buy their dresses. This was the Mecca of exclusivity, they said. And they wanted a dress no one else would have. My original thought was -- great, we'll call grandma and have her make one. Ahh... not so much. We went to three stores.

The first one hurt my eyes with all of the sparkles.  At this store, a man met you at the front entrance, took your name and dress size, and gave you a number. Girls waded through a sea of dresses - backless and strapless, poofy and straight, neon colors and classic blue, red and black, and ones with various amounts of cleavage. There were rules in this place. No cell phone use. No taking pictures. No moms in the dressing room.

And who spends $500 or more on a prom dress? I want to meet those parents, and tell them that their priorities are sorely lacking.

After about 15 minutes we left.

Out our cell phones came. We Googled our way to Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg Illinois. The second and third store had lots of options and a lot less bling. Some of the dresses still made us cringe, but overall we were impressed by what we found.

While the girls changed, Monica and I had talked about how we had our dresses made when we went to prom. Mine cost $75. Hers cost $50. It was great, we told each other while waiting for the girls to change.

40 dresses later...Noel had her dress. But my kid, not so much. The dress she wanted was $400 and she almost got it, but then there was the whole money issue that got in the way. So the answer was no.

Here's the awesome part... my kid is used to this. She knew the budget was no more than $300 -- a sum that quite frankly was still a lot of money to me. But she has a job and we have an agreement. I felt a little bad about not getting her "that" dress, but then I realized... it's a dress. There are others. She's a resilient kid, a kid that is used to her mother setting limits. And at the age of 18, she knows that living within your means is more important. Sure, she looked a little disappointed. But she got through it.

"That's OK mom, Noel and I are planning to go shopping again in two weeks," she said.

Ugh... more shopping.