Cinderella

In yet another stunning example of how I am doing things with/for my daughter that I swore I never would.... Mom and I took Faith to the stage production of Cinderella while the boys were at the Boise State game last weekend. So sexist- that the boys are at a football game while the girls are at Cinderella. Oh, well. Mom turned 70 at the end of November and one of my gifts to her was a "girls day out". We saw the ad for Cinderella in the newspaper and decided that would be a lot of fun. We dressed up (well.... by Boise standards anyway) and headed out to Nampa. It was really cute- so many little girls were dressed up as princesses and they were selling tiaras and wands (Thanks, Grandma!). Faith enjoyed the production but was half asleep by the second half. We ended up leaving about 3/4 through the show, meeting up with the boys at home for a pizza dinner and early bedtime.

I am not sure what about the "princess" thing bugs me so much. Brian tells me to stop fighting it and embrace the "girliness" and I am trying... But I just don't understand why she wants to dance and do gymnastics instead of throw a ball and play lacrosse. I don't understand the "pink pages" in the Toys-r-Us catalogue and why those are the only pages she wants to look at. Why does she want barbies and an Easy Bake oven for Christmas? This raising a girl thing has me stymied. The other morning I was putting on mascara and Faith came in the bathroom, grabbed an eyeliner or something and mimed putting it on saying, "I'm making myself pretty, Mama!". A little piece of my heart broke there- does she really already have the message that she can only be pretty if she has makeup on?? I know, I am making too much of an innocent comment but,still, it scares me to think of what messages I am sending her by something as simple as putting on a little makeup once in a while. But the messages are all around us, just like the pink pages in the catalogues, and there is only so much we can do to counteract them.

I love having a girl for so many reasons, but one of them is that it reminds me again

and again that some things, some of our childrens' character traits, JUST ARE. They are not the way they are because of something we do or don't do. As much as we tried to not go down the "princess and barbie road".... here we are. In lots of ways we are handed what we are handed, personality wise. I guess that means I give up taking credit for the good things but also get to give up some of the guilt for the bad things! I"ll take the trade-off!