Pretty Pretty Princess

It's finally happened. I've given in. You can't see it because, well you're there and I'm here, but I'm waving the white flag. I bought Alice this booster seat. Did you click? No? Well, I'll wait, go look. That's right. Pretty, pretty princess, shoot me in the eye, hot pink. I agreed to strap that thing in my sleek, sophisticated vehicle.

I'm waving the flag in acceptance of who my daughter truly is...a makeup wearing, pink lovely, purse toting girly girl princess. That's Alice. As hard as I tried to convince her she loved trains as much as dolls, the pirate costume as much as Rapunzel's dress, and Darth Maul as much as Flynn Ryder...wait, that one may be true, but not so on all the rest. She will play trains and cars, but Barbies and dollhouse will always be her first choice.

Let the record show, I'm not against pink and plastic Cinderella high heels, it's just all so foreign to me. I am not a girly girl. I grew up on a horse farm wearing muck boots and ponytails. I spent my days outside in the barn. I shoveled horse shit. Alice is afraid of flys. She wouldn't have made it. In middle school I begged my father to paint my room black, and when he wouldn't I had to settle for black bedding instead. You couldn't have paid me to wear pink. In high school the extent of my morning primping was brushing my teeth. The first time I purchased makeup was when I was 26 years old. Seriously. Up until then, if I wore makeup at all, I used the free Clinique samples my sisters would pass along to me. As you can see, I'm at a disadvantage raising Alice.

Parenting is a juggling act, try to balance the world for your child. I try to show Alice that there is more to life than just princesses. I don't want her to grow up thinking beauty is only on the outside and her worth comes from her physical appearance. I want her to know she's beautiful with or without the pink frilly dress, with or without lip gloss, and my favorite part of her body will always be her round tummy. I let her see girls can do anything boys can. She sees me with a screwdriver in my hand far more than her father. And I'm proud to say I'm learning from her. She's taught me that it's fun to be a little fancy and that a dash of pink here and there is A-okay. She enjoys watching me get dressed up to go out for a girls night or a date. She's making me appreciate shoes, pretty shoes. So, if this is who Alice is, I'm on board. I will support her and her girlyness as long as she ventures to the dirty tomboy side every now and again, she can even do it wearing five necklaces, two rings, high heels and a tutu if she wants.

Picking Friends

"Mama? Which friends did I take to school yesterday?" Alice asked me as we were preparing to leave for school.

"I don't know. Alice. Please put your shoes on, I don't want to be late."

"MAAAMA I have to pick my friends."

This conversation, or a variation of, can be overheard in my house five days a week. There is great consideration put into the decision. "Friend" picking is an art form. I feel I must stop myself and clarify for those who have no idea what I'm talking about. To Alice, dolls, barbies, babies, and most importantly in her eyes, princesses of varying size are her friends. She refers to herself as their Mama, though from the way it sounds she's more like their dictator. Anyway, she is allowed to bring a friend or two in the car for the ride to school and can bring one into school for the day.

A lot goes into picking friends. Somedays it's a breeze, the favorite doll of the day accompanies her. Other mornings it's as stressful as picking a presidential running mate, or so I imagine.

"I DON'T KNOW WHO TO PICK," she whines at me when I'm rushing her along.

There are mornings when she stews and worries over which doll hasn't been fortunate enough to visit school yet or which Barbie can't possibly come because they've been too grumpy and need to take a nap while she's gone. And then there are the times when she's selected the lucky winner but can't find the obvious partner to join them. "How can Rapunzel possibly leave Flynn Ryder at home?" Or, "it wouldn't be fair to Cherry Jam if Strawberry Shortcake gets to come and she doesn't! We just have to find Cherry Jam." I've grown used to the morning selection process, but every now and again she shocks me. Seemingly without any rhyme or reason a blast from the past from the bottom of a basket will be the chosen one. Yesterday she took blinking Dora. Blinking Dora has seen better days. She was acquired during Alice's younger, artistic period. Dora has black sharpie eye shadow on her blinking eyelids and the whites of her eyes are now filled in black as well. Her underwear has also been decorated with said sharpie. Dora's hair, which used to be fastened neatly in two pig tails, now flows freely in one big tangled mess. Why Dora, who is never played with these days, was selected is beyond me.

Once we are safely fastened in our seats, there is often more discussion regarding the morning decision.

"Mama? Do you think Merida is jealous of Pocahontas because I didn't pick her?"

"I don't know Alice. Maybe," I tell her.

"She probably is. But Merida has gotten to go to school lots of times. This is Pocahontas's first time. You must be super excited to come into my school, Pocahontas. Just wait till you see my cubby!"

She really is the most adorable kid in the whole entire world.

 

 

Except your kid. I'm sure your kid is equally as adorable.

She's a Cutter

Alice is a cutter. No paper is spared. I shit you not, from sun up to sun down my daughter cuts.

If it wasn't so damn annoying, it would be cute. Her current favorite pastime is coloring people in coloring books and then cutting them out. She says she's making her own paper dolls. Cute, huh? Which brings me to the so damn annoying part.

These "paper dolls" are everyfreakingwhere!! She takes them in the car. She takes them to nap. She leaves them on the coffe table. I find them under couch pillows and under tables. I'm up to my ears in "paper dolls." So...I did what any good mom would do. I forced her to purge. She was able to keep ten and the rest would go to other kids who aren't fortunate enough to have their own paper dolls. Hehehe. While she was away at school, ahh school, I recycled the scraps. She arrived home that day, shocked the give away pile was gone, I simply explained what happened. "While you were at school, I saw a few kids walking by and I asked them if they would enjoy playing with the paper dolls. They said yes, so I gave them away." Alice bought it. She actually seemed pleased in herself, like she was helping make mankind better. Let me inform you it lasted a day or two at most.

"So Mama. If the paper dolls are on the couch, you can't give those away. And if you find them on this table, you can't give those away either."

An hour later.

"Mama. These paper dolls that I'm putting here on this shelf, these you can't give away. These are for me to keep. And those over there, I'm keeping too. You can't give any of these away."

Sigh.

My world is full of paper barbies and paper princesses. Paper wings cut from paper fairies and glued to paper mermaids.

Do you know what all of this paper cutting leads to? Little shreds and scraps and strips of paper all over the freakin place. There are so many little pieces of paper on every surface and littering the floor, I hardly see them anymore. No, I still see them. I soo see them. They drive me mad. I wanna scream, "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! PICK UP YOUR TRASH, CHILD!!" But I don't, something about stiffing her creativity or something. I encourage her to clean up after herself, knowing she's four and I'm likely to be doing the majority of it myself. As I'm on all fours pinching bits and pieces, I remind myself, this too shall pass. It's just a phase, an adorable, irritating phase in the creative life of Alice.

Halloween in July

I found this in my mail box yesterday.

Do you know what this is? This is rediculous, is what it is! How dare a company send me a Halloween catalog in July! Blasphemy! It's July for God's sake! July! I can accept Christmas in Target before Thanksgiving, but Halloween catalogs when it's 104 degrees outside I just can not get on board with. How dare they do this to me!

As a mom, can I not get a break? Holidays are crack for kids, wiring them up with excitement, hopping them up on sugar. Summer is my salvation, a break from the crazy. And now this? Don't I even get my summer? Halloween is quite possibly the worst of them all. What with the begging complete strangers to give them candy simply because they are wearing dress up outside. That's all costumes are, fancified dress up. But now the catalogs have started to pour in. They will not stop. And every one will fuel Alice with an extra boost of crazy in anticipation for a holiday that's months away. Each one will be studied by her, as she contemplates which facade she should don.

It's already started. Seated in my lap, flipping through the catalog, she asked the name of each one until she arrived at this costume. She declared, in July mind you, this is what she wants to be for Halloween.

Convient, I tell her. That costume is currently sitting on the top shelf in her closet from last year when she insisted she had to be this exact Aurora for Halloween. The cheaper Aurora from Costume Express would not do for my champagne taste princess. It was a lovely costume and she was a beautiful princess. It was worth every penny we spent on it. And if she wants to wear it again this Halloween, the cost per wear is greatly reduced. Fingers crossed.

She continued thumbing the catalog, studying each perfectly photographed disguise. Then she landed on this gem.

Hearing the news that she already owned the Aurora costume, she insisted this year she would be Alice for Halloween. Funny. This, my friends, is what we wanted her to be last year for Halloween. More than wanted, begged. We promised she could trick-or-treat with her uncle's beagle, the dog she adores, dressed up like the white rabbit. I promised her I would dress up as the Queen of Hearts, if she would please, for the love of all things good, pretty pretty please pick the cheaper, adorable Alice costume.

I don't know what she will decide. It is, after all, MONTHS away! It will certainly be easy for me if she settles on Aurora. All she'll need is a new crown since she broke hers in a fit of rage one day. Alice...well, I think we all know how I feel about Alice. It would be oh so fitting for my Alice to finally be Alice. Nothing would make me happier. It's still too early to place bets yet, it is after all only JULY!! She did stare longingly at the Darth Vader costume. I don't think we can rule anything out yet. I'll let you good readers know how it pans out...in THREE MONTHS FROM NOW!

The Tragic Tale of Ariel's Disappearance

Something tragic happened today. Someone took Alice's Ariel book.

**gasp**

This is how it went down. After canceling our zoo plans on account of the rain, we decided to go to Storyville. For those of you not in the know, Storyville is this amazing play space, complete with 8 different themed rooms, inside of the public library. And it's free. It's really great, except on rainy days when school is not in session. Which, coincidentally, today turned out to be. When you don't have a school aged child you forget about things like summer break. Since they only allow a certain amount of people in at a time, we had to wait. They even give you the light up buzzer thing to notify you when it's your turn.

While we waited we visited the libary, which was also ridiculously crowded. Note to self: Get your shit together and get out of the house earlier if you don't like waiting with swarms of loud screaming crying children or stay home and just listen to one loud screaming crying child. Even though I wasn't looking to check out any books, Alice's friends were allowed to and I'm not ready to be horrible mean mommy out in public yet, so I let Alice pick out a few. Her picks were a children's baking cookbook, Tinkerbell, Fancy Nancy, Strega Nona Takes a Vacation, The Story of Darth Vader, Snow Dog Marley, and The Little Mermaid.

When our light up vibrating thingamajig went off, we checked out the books and headed into Storyville. I put our books in the coat and bag room. Knowing that princess books are a high commodity, I put Ariel to the bottom of the stack and put boring Marley on the top. This was my best effort at deterring theft.

Apparently I shouldn't be left to guard prized jewels, because my theft deterrence system failed. When it was time to leave Storyville, we went to gather our things when I noticed the Marley book was no longer on top. It didn't take Alice long to realize Ariel was no longer in the stack.

Commence full hysterics.

"Someone took ARIEEELLL!! Mama, someone took my book. Who took my book? Mama, I WANT ARIEL!"

"I know, Alice. I'm sorry someone took the book you picked. I'm sure they didn't know you had already picked that book. Come on. We already checked it out, we need to go let the libarian know what happened."

"Then we'll get my book back, right Mama? Cause I picked Ariel first. It's mine, Mama. Are you going to tell them it's mine?"

Ignoring Alice, I needed to deal with a bigger matter. I didn't want to be responsible for a book I didn't have. After settling the issue with the librarian, I held Alice's hand and walked her to the door. That's when it hit her. He mother, the person she trusted the most, was going to walk out of the library without locating the book in question. She stopped in her tracks and started sobbing. Scream sobbing.

"But Mama! WE CAN'T LEAVE WITHOUT ARIEL!! No Mama! Go get her! GO GET HER MAMA! I picked Ariel! She's mine. Tell them to give the book back to me MAMA!"

I tried to explain that I didn't know who took the book, therefore I had no way of getting it back. She wasn't listening, she couldn't hear me over the sounds of her overly dramatic crying. Holding her hand we left the library sans Ariel. On the ride home, Alice continued to grumble under her breath. At one point I heard her say she should have picked Snow White instead of Ariel. I suppose in the preschooler crowd dimwitted Snow White is not as desirable as flirty Ariel, ergo less likely to be stolen. I'm glad she picked Ariel. One less princess book I have to read over the next three weeks.

The moral of the story, eh, there's no moral. Theft happens. Move on. That's what I did when someone stole my jogging stroller 373 days ago. I certainly haven't thought about it every day since then. I've moved on. I'm sure Alice will, too.

Guilty By Association

On Tuesday, the glorious "red envelope" arrived in the mail. I keep the Netflix que a secret, so it's arrival is greeted much like Santa Claus.

This week...Mulan.

You know what that means? I've been living and breathing Mulan for 3 entire days now. Don't dare call her Alice, it's Mulan. I've been playing the part of the grandmother. It's really a minor role compared to my normal parts, Mother Gothel, The Evil Stepmother, and Captain Hook. I'm not reading into my daughter's casting at this time. Besides, I rather like playing The Evil Stepmother. Her bossiness is right up my alley.

Let it be known, I'm not a fan of the Disney Princesses. They do far too much cleaning and talk to far too many woodland creatures for my liking. That being said, this Mulan chick rocks! She is a total bad ass. She doesn't spend her days twirling around in full length sequined gowns. She's not waiting for a fairy godmother, or worse yet, a man, to save her. Instead, she's shooting arrows and scaling buildings, all the while convincing the other warriors she's a man. Her animal creature, it seems they all have to have one, isn't a mouse or a bird. It's a dragon. A fire breathing dragon. And quite possibly the best feature of all, she doesn't fall head over heels in love with some guy, only to live happily ever after. It was refreshing.

I'm glad Alice has taken a liking to Mulan. I only have one teeny tiny problem...Disney insists on calling her a princess. She is not of royal lineage. She doesn't marry a prince. So why the eff does Disney feel the need to lump her in with all the others? I think it brings her street cred down a bit. Guilty by association, if you will. But if they must do it, they need to treat her like all the rest. I want to see Mulan's warrior suit for sale in the dress-up section of the Disney Store, right next to Rapunzel's purple dress. I want her sword next to Cinderella's glass slippers.

The power of the Disney Princess to a little girl is strong. Sronger than myself. No matter how hard I tried, how many wooden cars and blocks I provided Alice with, the Disney Princess line sought my daughter out, targeted her, and invaded my house. The least they could do is give her all the options. Let her choose what kind of princess she wants to be today, a tulle wearing, girly girl or a total bad ass.