Fast forward 7 short years later...and somehow - my little girl who enjoyed painting herself with purple fingerpaint is now a tweenager! How did this happen? All of a sudden, she is saying things like: "Mom, can I download the Lemonade Mouth album onto my IPOD?" and "Mom, can we go and see the movie "Prom"?" And my personal favorite: "Why CAN'T I read Twilight??? I'm like the ONLY girl in my class who hasn't read it! And I am SO on Team Edward!"
WTF?????
Many of you know that Busy Momma and Crew are heading to the Happiest and Most EXPENSIVE Place on Earth in a few short weeks. And while booking the trip and making reservations, I stumbled across a NEW attraction that I was SURE my girl would be aching to visit - The Bippity Boppity Boutique. Apparently, for the low, low price of 18 million bucks, apprentices to Cinderella's Fairy Godmother will do your hair and makeup and dress you up like ANY PRINCESS or Tinkerbelle. Sign me up - take all of my cash...I'm in. As I am making the reservation, Bella walks up and asks me what I'm doing. I show her the website and explain that I'm making an appointment for her.
How do I explain the look that came over MY darling little princess...you know - the one who used to pray for a mermaid tail so that she could swim with Ariel? Let's pretend that I had her suck on a lemon and drink 210 day old milk at the same time. Get the picture? Can you see that puss in your mind's eye? And here is what my darling little baby - the one who had me in labor for 3 days AND came out upside down AND backwards AND broke my tailbone for shits and giggles on her way out- said to me. Wait for it....
"Um - I TOTALLY hope that you're making that reservation for yourself because I am certainly NOT dressing up like a princess in front of like A MILLION people in Disneyland. Mom - I'm almost 10 years old here."
Humph....
So I thanked the lovely Disney lady on the phone and told her that actually we wouldn't be needing that Royal Princess package complete with souvenier photo after all. Now, this did not bother PC in the least because, in his words, "Well, she just saved us about 18 million bucks." Not that the Royal Princess package was really THAT much...I mean it was ridiculously pricey...but I wouldn't have had to sell Jack into slavery for it.
So why can't I see it through PC's pragmatic glasses? Why can't I just be happy that I do not have to spend ridiculous amounts of money on licensed Disney paraphenalia anymore? Why can't I be thrilled that I do NOT have to contribute to that money-making machine that is the whole princess industry? Why am I sad every time I buy an outfit and can't but matching little bows and headbands and ruffled socks? Been there - done that!
Because I MISS that crazy little girl who thought she would wake up as a mermaid if she prayed hard enough! I MISS the little girl who believed in Santa and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. And don't get me wrong - I love and adore the wonderful young lady I have today. But I am beginning to realize that this parenting thing doesn't get easier as they get older...it gets harder and scarier! When she was 3, I was able to control and manipulate her entire world. And while that might sound crazy - I was totally able to keep her safe. I was in charge 24/7. Now - she is in school, at scouts, at parties....in other words - I am NOT in charge anymore. (Don't tell her that - she hasn't figured that one out.) I cannot control everything that happens to her. And that scares the heck out of me.
I just finished reading Tina Fey's new book "Bossypants". It's awesome - go and get it. And, if you've had more that 2 kids - a box of Poise pads. It's that funny. In her book, she shares a prayer that she has written for her daughter Alice. Again - pee your pants funny. And it inspired me to write my own prayer...
For Bella as she navigates through her Tween years:
Dear Lord:
Please guard and protect my girl as she grows into the beautiful young woman you and I both know she can be. Please help her navigate through the difficult middle school issues with strength and grace.
May she always remember the lessons she learned at home and apply them in her daily life. May she never take crap from the mean girls in her class. However - may she be smart enough to never enter a fight she cannot possibly win. Lord, give her the strength and smarts to stay away from those 2 really mean biotches in her school. Those girls are for real. And they scare me a little.
May she never believe the "how babies are made" rumors that will surely surface in the next year. May she never believe that babies are made when 2 adults crawl, naked into a hole in the sand and emerge fully clothed at the other end of that hole, as her mother believed for far too long. Also - may she never start one of those rumors, because that would be really embarrasing.
Dear Lord, please do NOT allow her to get sucked in by the "Giggle Patch". Please steer her FAR away from those girls who, at the tender age of 9 and 10 are already playing "WHO is hot and WHO is NOT". The girls who pretend to giggle and fall over when a "hot" 10 year old walks in front of them. May she continue to understand and believe that 10-year old boys are gross and smelly and have gross smelling farts. Bevcause they are and they do. May she realize that the "giggle patch girls" are the same girls who geek out and fall out of their seats when they attend an all-girl Catholic High School and a boy walks down the hallway. Dear Lord, please, please please do NOT allow her to become one of those girls.
Please God - help her improve her taste in music. Even though Justin Beiber and Willow Smith are your beloved children...PC and I cannot stand listening to "Whip my Hair" and "Baby, Baby, Baby" one more time. So either improve her taste in music or render us deaf...I beg of you.
Dear God - give her the strength to continue to play with her Barbies and American Girl Dolls for a few more years. We paid alot of money for those things and really would like to get at least another year or two out of them. Please let her continue to think the BRATZ dolls are gross and have deformed lips. And while we are on the topic of lips - please let her continue to believe that Burts Bees tinted lip balm is actually lipstick. Thanks for that by the way.
And please please please grace her with her father's metabolism as she grows and blossoms into a young woman. Because if she keeps eating the way she is eating and if she is blessed with my metabolism...we're going to have issues - that's all I'm saying. Please spare her from the terrible acne that will affect her peers. However - if I have to choose chubby or acne - I'll take chub. We can always work that off but tween acne is a bitch to clear up. And while we are on the topic of genes...please please do NOT grace her with my thighs. I mean seriously - please don't do that.
And finally Lord, as we enter into this forbidden forest that is puberty - please do NOT burden her with getting her first period at school, in front of everyone. While it will not kill her, it will not make her stronger and it might lead to years and years of pricey therapy. Let her get it the way her mother got it - while on a trip, with her father, in a foreign country. And let her father deal with it...because what the hell else does the dad really have to deal with in the forbidden forest - huh?
And finally Lord, may she never believe:
- that a boy's thing might fall off if he doesn't "do it" before he turns 18
- that she can get pregnant from sitting on a toilet seat that has a random sperm on it
- that she can get pregnant from dry-humping
- that all of the cool girls really do know what a BJ is in 5th grade
- that the random slutty girl in school really did "do it" with an 8th grader last weekend
- that boys will really like her and that she will be popular if she IS that random slutty girl
In your name, we pray...