Pink Princess Mania!

Yesterday was Lucy's (my three year-old sister) third birthday celebration. Her actual birthday was Wednesday but due to family scheduling conflicts, and the fact that she has no idea when her birthday is, we postponed the celebration until Saturday.

Whether it's all the practice she's gotten from watching the rest of her siblings' birthdays or just an inherent proclivity for being in the spotlight, she was a master of present opening efficiency and graciousness. She'd receive a present with an appropriate wide-eyed grin, exercise enough restraint to pause and pose for a photo, then proceed to tear the wrapping paper in an methodical yet eager manner. She reserved a special exclamation of glee for any item that was branded with Cinderella's face. If you're ever walking through Walmart or Target past the little girls section, and if you are at all like me and think 'Who on earth buys those neon-pink sparkly items? Who would ever turn their child into a walking Disney advertisement?' The answer? Well my sister now only owns half of those items and I don't know who takes care of the rest. She has pink princess sheets, a pink princess towel, two princess barbies complete with a spinning musical horse-drawn carriage, a pink princess lunchbox, two new room additions for her pink dollhouse (a laundry room and a bathroom....up till now the poor dolls have been roughing it and using the great outdoors when nature calls), the Sleeping Beauty DVD, a pink Leapster (a game boy of sorts for little kids with all sorts of learning-oriented games...hers are the princess variety), a pink backpack, and, last but not least, four princess figurines from her princess cake.

After present-opening was complete she did not complain or moan about wanting more but rather climbed up on her chair resolutely and ate dinner with all seven of us. In keeping with the birthday tradition Lucy got to select her favorite breakfast and dinner...she requested princess cake for both. After several difficult conversations about the subject she finally selected Macaroni and Cheese, but not just any Mac and Cheese, the kind from the box! So my mom cooked up four or five boxes and we all ate it together. Lucy seemed to enjoy it but when the cake was brought over she lost all interest in dinner. After my mom had placed the candles, Lucy's emotions got the best of her and she yelled, "Now put some fire on it!" After blowing out the 'fire' on the candles she requested the piece with Cinderella figure on top. Much to my dismay, my five year-old brother George requested the piece with Sleeping Beauty on it. In addition, he wanted the big rose next to where the Sleeping Beauty figurine stood! Thinking he was just excited about having a toy on his cake I didn't worry to much about it.

Later, after my parents had left and George and Lucy had watched Lucy's new movie, they wanted to play with the new Barbies and the carriage. Twenty-five minutes later I had finally loosed all the pieces from their wire and cardboard containers. In the process one of the Barbies lost a chunk of hair and I sustained three paper cuts and one scissor-puncture wound. There were several incidents where Lucy was on the verge of tears because one of the the Barbie slippers had gone missing. Thankfully all were recovered in a timely fashion. George took one of the Barbies but explained to Lucy and I that it was ok for boys to play with girl toys. I agreed with him...until I heard the awful sounds that were coming out of his mouth. He had thrown his voice up at least two octaves and Lucy, following his lead, had done the same. I watched for a minute as they paraded the Barbies around their carriage but I couldn't take the shrieking. I asked George why he was changing his voice and he said, "That's how girls talk!" I couldn't argue with the fact that girls have higher voices than boys but the thought of him thinking he needed to change his voice because of it's masculinity was a bit much...the kid sounds like Elmo. He started getting pretty into his Barbie and I was getting a little worried but didn't know what to do. On the one hand I didn't want to promote unfair gender roles but I also didn't want him to be such a....girl!

Luckily bed-time saved me from having to interfere. We went upstairs to their room where I was instructed to put Lucy's new princess sheets on her bed. As I was struggling to do this around the gates on either side of her bed (they keep her from falling off at night), I heard her yell my name in distress and I turned to see her squatting by her closet making a large wet spot on the carpet. I grabbed her and ran her into the bathroom but by then the toilet was of no use and I just had to stick her in the tub to clean her off. In the midst of running between cleaning up the spot in her room and checking on her in the bath, George needed my help getting his shirt off and over his abnormally large head. Finally I got both kids tucked safely in bed. However Lucy's omnipresent and most-cherished color pink had spread to my face - whether from pink-princess exposure or exhaustion I don't know.