this past weekend, violet attended her first "princess party" for a neighbor friend's birthday. the age of princess obsession has officially begun. what's incredible is that violet hasn't seen a single princess movie, and yet she loves the disney princesses so much already. SO MUCH, seemingly based entirely on aesthetics. has anyone read any interesting research on this? kevin and i have been meaning to watch that documentary about the man who created elmo's voice. it's just mind-blowing how some of these characters are universally appealing to kids. at first, violet had but one single disney princess book (which is read by the recorded voice of her cousin reese), and i'm not exaggerating when i say she wants it several times a day. then she received a disney princess bath set from her auntie courtney for her birthday, and the princesses now bathe or shower with her every single night. she washes each one lovingly and "writes their names" on the steamed-up glass. she knows all of their names of course. her favorite (as she will tell you) is cinderella, but she also really loves tiana, so she was bewildered to discover that tiana was ne'er to be found in her bath set. "where teeAHnuh?" she'll ask as she looks for her with true bewilderment. ah, her first lesson in racism. see? disney is educational too.
after bath one night, i sang "the work song" from cinderella (as she danced naked on our bed - a favorite pastime), and now she asks me to sing "cinderelly" every night. i'd forgotten (blocked out?) the last verse, so i looked up the lyrics online. "leave the sewin' to the women! you go get some trimmin'!" poor little jacques just wanted to make haute couture, but because the fashion world is no place for a boy mouse - even a frenchy one! - he was relegated to a life of crime. like i said, educational.
when nana found out violet was invited to a princess party, she surprised her with a tinkerbell gown. violet was thrilled. i don't think darcy and charley really understood what the big deal was.
violet is scared of a few things lately: swiper; tico the purple squirrel ("he have big teef. he could BITE me!" we don't need to go into the irony here); the dark; motorcycles; and, most of all, witches. but, despite her fear, she's also slightly obsessed with witches. we've been listening to a halloween song where the witch cackles at the end, and the other day, completely unrelated, i was saying how something funny made me laugh, which i punctuated with a laugh for emphasis. "that not a laugh. that a cackle, mama," she corrected. this immediately surfaced all of my high-school self-consciousness about my laugh, which friends loved to tease they could identify from across campus. was it a cackle then too?
what was i talking about? oh! big thunder ranch is so awesome with its seasonal holiday activities. violet rejected the witch mask and selected the bat to color.
suddenly, a crowd descended, cameras flashing paparazzi style, and then, we saw them... minnie and mickey! i waited for violet's fear of the big characters to appear, but instead, she smiled with pure joy. she was patient as we waited our turn to meet them, and she went over to minnie and gave her a big hug. we escaped the mass and went to play a carnival game involving spinning a fortune wheel. and guess who came over?
love the big finish so much.
Cannot wait to do Dizzy with her again!
ReplyDeleteAlso for the record, Cuzzie would like a dancer as well =)