The Plastic Bag Princess turns five

What's a doll dress without glitter?

ViolaMae and I have had an exceptional year of togetherness, to a degree that we are unlikely ever to repeat. Now, as she turns five (already!?!), I have been thinking about the dramatic changes in her life this year and the wonderful bonding opportunities we've had.

Last September Augie started all-day kindergarten. For the first time in her life, ViMae didn't have her older brother (by 15 months) at her side.

She was lonely for a day or two, and then she began, in a dozen different ways, to blossom. She came to relish our undivided attention. She developed the confidence to choose activities she enjoyed. No longer always interrupting herself to check on her brother, she displayed an impressive attention span.

The Plastic Bag Princess

She and I soon found ourselves spending hours each day doing crafts--drawing, painting, stitching, stickering, making and decorating doll dresses, creating holiday decorations of her unique design, cataloging the shell and rock collection Peter gave her, even writing and illustrating a couple of books. (For the messiest crafts, she wore a big plastic bag as a smock, and I dubbed her the Plastic Bag Princess after a favorite princess-as-hero book, The Paper Bag Princess.)

Among other things we also read, picked flowers in the garden, played DragonVale on the iPad, made up stories, and played dress-up with colorful scarves serving as skirts or veils. 

To top things off, we both began to dance, singly and together. Early last fall we danced programs dreamed up by Vi. A sample directive: "I'll be a rosebud and you be a fairy princess that touches me with her wand and I'll rise up out of the ground and open like a flower."

Shhh...a preview!

Shortly after that she enrolled in a dance class; I've been taking her there every Tuesday morning and helping her practice between classes. That's how I learned about the tap class I began in January. Now we are dancing together in a parent-child class preparing a production number for the recital, which is this week. I'll have more to say, but I want to note that she is giving me a huge gift by dancing with her grandma! I hope that in turn I'm helping her develop a long-term interest in dance.

 As Vi's personality has emerged this year, it is clear that she is very creative in ways that draw upon not coloring within the lines, literally or figuratively.

Coloring outside the lines

She has blossomed as a natural spinner of stories, mixing real-world settings with fanciful ones. She can pick up any little thing and make it the protagonist of a lengthy narrative, or the centerpiece of a craft construction.

She loves pink, princesses, fairies, dragons, flowers, ballet, gymnastics, swimming, shells, rocks, and dresses with twirly skirts. Wherever we go, she tends to wear a fancy dress with casual leggings or pants beneath, to protect her knees in case she climbs a tree or hangs upside-down on playground equipment. On the other hand, she might decide to show up in her dragon costume. And all winter she loved walking into preschool wearing her jacket backwards, with the hood up, holding my hand for navigation.

In princess dress in Pa's workroom

She still loves to be with her brother, and we see that every morning while they are both here for breakfast. But when he isn't around she is quite happy to spend time with Peter and me, and sometimes to play by herself. She makes friends wherever she goes. At a playground or a library story hour she gravitates to other children and melds effortlessly into the group, sometimes becoming the group's new leader. We hear her organizing their games and we never see signs of resistance or resentment. Watching her show some children how to use a big sculptural toy at the library last week, Peter said, "She's going to be a teacher."

Whatever she turns out to be, she will follow her own heart, win people over with her charm, and approach each situation without a lot of pre-set boundaries and limitations. It has been such a joy to spend time with her this year and get to discover her strengths, even as she herself discovers and flexes them.

And oh, by the way, Happy Birthday, sweet ViolaMae. I love you very, very much!

What would Princess Leia do?

ViolaMae is four years old today. She is wearing her new princess dress and behaving with royal aplomb and new maturity. Well, not every minute, but much of the time.

Vi is learning that a princess can be strong and assertive--think Princess Leia rather than Disney characters, pretty though they may be. Now that she's four, Vi knows that a princess can get more of what she wants with a declarative sentence ("I'd like more orange juice, please") than pretend baby-talk ("Thirsty!") or whining. A princess can wear a ball gown and play hard. 

Best of all, Vi could give other princesses lessons in being loving, kind, and generous. She nurtures dolls and toy animals and friends and relatives, and she dispenses hugs and kisses freely and sincerely. 

She enjoyed being center of attention during her special pre-birthday week here at Wild Rumpus Daycare. She and I spent a day playing with her new princess paper dolls, decorating the dresses with stick-on gems and having the princesses try them on. (I was impressed that today's paper dolls are made of sturdy cardboard, and the dresses have magnets behind them. But the dresses still slide off, just as the ones with little paper shoulder-tabs did when I was a kid. Go figure!)

Another day, as we buckled in for the drive to preschool, Augie asked, "Why are the bongo drums in the car?" With that, Peter handed the bongos to Augie, pulled out new maracas for Vi, and cued up the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil." For a few weeks they've been pretending to play along to the salsa beat, and this time they played real instruments. It was an awesome "Sympathy" symphony. (The lyrics are awfully dark; I think we will find other tunes that call for maracas.)

The big gift that Vi asked for is Olivia's house, the crown jewel of the Legos "Friends" series. These are the first Legos designed expressly for girls. They are attractive, but they are meant for kids with bigger hands, so Grandma does most of the building, and then Vi does most of the playing. A good balance, don't you agree?

Her party was this morning, and I had to miss it. I managed to fall yesterday afternoon--at the hairdresser's!--and twist my leg, which hurts like crazy from hip to toe. This coming week is our last week of daycare for the season and I want to be mobile for it, so I'm resting and icing. ViMae and her mom came to see us after I got home on my sore leg last evening, and she gave me lots of hugs and kisses to help make it better. They said if I had to miss the party, they'd understand. That's the kind of princess they both are. 

Happy Birthday, ViolaMae. May the Force be with you.

By the way, I just noticed that posts on Vi's second and third birthdays also show her in princess garb. She is consistent! 

Happy Birthday, Ballerina Princess Vi

Miss ViolaMae, aka ViMae, aka Vi, is three years old today, and she's pretty excited about it. To her, it means she's a big girl now.

Some months ago, she decided she'd be potty trained when she was three (but not before, thank you). Over Memorial Day weekend she pretty much made the entire transition. At our house, she's been proudly self-sufficient with only a couple of accidents. As Peter points out, we may have acquired the last diaper we'll ever use in this house...until we need them ourselves.

Almost as big a deal as the potty training, she got to ride the carousel all by herself today. Our safety rules say kids must be 3 or older to ride alone, so until now she's always had a grownup standing next to her. It was a thrill for Peter to take her today (they went while I was driving Augie to preschool), and the nice thing is that she'll be just as excited when she returns with Mom, Dad, and Brother to share her new status.

We like to do a series of pre-birthday presents for both kids, partly as a way to freshen the daycare experience. This week's gifts have included a ballet/princess-style crown of flowers and a wand, more animals for the World's Largest Lego Zoo, and paints and paint brushes. We made cookies with pink sprinkles and held a tea party with the dolls. (Augie got a doll that he named Bob, who apparently plans a career as a Builder and who ViMae thinks she might marry.)

In our first couple of years together, Augie regularly made big demands on my attention. Not that I minded; I was (and am) head-over-heels for the guy. But we had all kinds of activities for which he wanted my undivided attention - and in which Vi didn't seem to care to participate. So instead, she spent lots of time with Pa. It was never all that one-sided; we always made a point of switching off so we could be sure to develop our relationships with both kids. And of course we do lots of things all together.

In the weeks and months, Vi and I have really deepened our relationship and have found all kinds of new things that we love doing together. She spends big parts of each day nestling with me as we read, color, do little crafty things, watch the eagle or loon camera, or just talk.

With no prompting from anyone, she emerged as a girlie-girl who loves pink, fairies, princesses, ballerinas, tutus, butterflies, etc. I never wanted to be guilty of nudging her in that direction, but now that she's gotten there on her own, I'm more than happy to indulge. (I heard a psychologist say that little girls go through a period in which the Princess helps them build their gender identity, and it's not really as insipid or threatening as it may seem)

And all the while, I'm praising her strength (she is an amazing climber and would be a good gymnast, I think) and her courage (she is fearless both physically and socially, so she holds her own even on a playground crowded with bigger kids). I'm not the only one to give her these messages, it's just that she and I seem to be finding more things that we like doing together, so I am finding new opportunities to give positive messages in my own way, in the context of our own relationship.

I find myself thinking of all sorts of new things we can do together to build on her interests. And suddenly I'm realizing, wow, it's about to be summer and we won't see her much, and next year she'll be in preschool three afternoons a week, and omigosh time is going by so quickly.....

I was saying that (about both kids) to my sister's husband yesterday, and he said, "Yes, and the year after that they'll be graduating from college." All I could think was, "I hope I'm around for a good long time yet, because there's so much for us to do together." I love you Viola Mae. Happy Birthday, Princess.

Happy birthday, ViMae...

With enthusiasm and joy, Vi turned 2 this week. Scheduling complications for the grownups actually resulted in two celebrations and two "minimalist" events involving bite-sized birthday cake and tiny pink cookies.

Here she is modeling her new crown, a new dress beneath an old favorite tutu, and new duds for her dolls. Nothing about this child's upbringing told her to like pink, choose dresses instead of pants, or nurture dolls more than her brother does. And she does love to run, climb, and play ball...but these days she usually does it while wearing pink. It's funny because nobody wants to push the kids into gender role stereotypes, and we'd be happy whatever their choices, but who doesn't love to see little girls in pretty pastel dresses? (The me of the 1970s would be shocked.)

One of her birthday gifts was a plastic tea set, so Pa and I had a little tea party for Vi and Augie. We served make-believe tea and actual pink cookies. Both kids love food-related toys, so this is a big hit--as is the shopping cart with toy groceries she got from her daddy's parents. When daycare ends for the summer, we'll send the tea set home. They will play waiter and chef, taking someone's order, shopping for the ingredients, then preparing and serving the food--a game they already love to play, even without props. Happy Birthday, granddaughter.