Monday, November 14, 2011

My daughter . . . the Princess!

“Daddy, I a princess,” my daughter says in her excited three year old voice.
            She doesn’t have to convince me.  I have believed this since the day she was born.  In fact, when my wife was pregnant with our daughter, my greatest fear was that she would have me wrapped around her little, princess fingers . . . which has proven to be totally true and an accurate concern.  However, her view of her being a princess and mine are different, I mean, my peasant mind could not fathom the duties and responsibilities or royalty, right?  She has totally embraced the idea of a princess gown and tiara (which she calls a “crown”) as the defining characteristics of a princess, while in my mind, she just IS my princess.
She has started insisting on wearing her dress up princess costumes all the time.  The people we run across at church, restaurants, or the local grocery store actually make the situation even more difficult to manage as she is consistently hearing, “Oh, isn’t the little princess so cute!”  To which she gives a big grin with squinty eyes, tilting her head to the side in an effort to feign bashfulness, and will often end in a twirl.
She loves to dress like a princess so much that she doesn’t want to be seen until she is in full princess regalia.  One recent morning, I was coming down the hall as my wife was assisting her in putting on her full princess gear.  I was met with, “Daddy, No!  Don’t look!  I not ready!”
Now this wasn’t because she was indecent, it was because she wasn’t perfectly dressed in her beautiful gown.  In fact, she often can’t decide on which princess outfit she should wear, so what should any self-respecting princess do in such a conundrum?  Why she wears them all, of course.  It not unusual to see our little princess wandering through the house with a white gown, covered by a red sparkly dress, covered by a pink tutu.  Try telling her that it’s too much or it doesn’t match and suffer the princess wrath.
Recently, we forced her to wear some of her normal three year old clothes (this wasn’t to prove a point, it was simply because those dresses had to be washed or they would probably start twirling on their own) and she went into a depression.  As I walked into the room, I said, “How’s my little princess?”
Only to be met with, “I not a princess,” followed by a sad and disappointed sigh. 
“But you have your crown on.” I responded, trying to bring her out of her funk, it didn’t matter, she knew better . . . she is royalty after all. 
There is a bridal shop we drive by several times a day with beautiful gowns in the window and every time we drive by she says, “I want to get married.”  Now she has no interest in boys at this age, it all dates back to a conversation when her mommy told her she could wear one of those dresses when she got married.  We’ll have to coach her on the real meaning of marriage as she grows older, because all it means now is that she gets to wear a beautiful white gown and look like a princess.
No matter how far away a wedding day may seem, it is too soon for this daddy!  My daughter doesn’t need a white dress to be a princess in my eyes . . . but then, I clearly have no understanding of the true duties of royalty.                   
            

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