Keep Calm and Princess On

Our 3.9-year old loves princesses. It started early. She was mesmerized by jewelry before the age of one. Before she knew her colors by name {between 1.5-2 years old} she was consistently choosing pink, yes, choosing. Around the same time, she started asking to wear dresses every. single. day. Then came the discovery of tiaras, and before we knew it we were living with a princess.

You may have noticed that princesses are getting some bad press these days. Some would probably say our daughter has fallen victim to the gender specific marketing of toys and so-called "Princess culture," a device of our capitalist society to keep women in the kitchen where they belong. Others might even say we've dropped the ball as parents by letting this happen. You see, princesses send the wrong message to young girls- that they're helpless and need a man to save them. Princesses don't really send the message that girls should focus on their education or a career either since they generally dance around a castle all day, helpless and waiting for a man. Worst of all, princesses tend to be pretty, wear pretty dresses, and have lots of jewelry {so as to attract a man}. This leads young girls to believe that their value lies only in their physical appearance. 

I don't entirely disagree with those concerns. And yet, we let her play princesses to her heart's content and let her choose pink toys, clothes, shoes, crayons, you-name-it, whenever she wants.

Here are 5 reasons we're going to keep calm and princess on:

1. Princesses have come a long way since Cinderella.

In case you haven't seen a princess movie lately, they're not all damsels-in-distress anymore. In fact, most of the princesses in the more recent movies are the heroines of the story. Carsen hasn't seen most of the princess movies, but the ones she has seen have strong main characters. Anna & Elsa are her current favorites, and if you haven't seen Frozen, you should. Additionally, not all princesses are a creation of the Walt Disney corporation! What?! I know, it's shocking. Seriously though, there is still real actual royalty out there in the world and some of them are amazing role models. The obvious example is Kate Middleton, who Carsen knows and recognizes as a princess. She's certainly beautiful and wealthy and married to a prince. But she's also a good person, a mother, and a great role model. I have no problem with my daughters looking up to her.

2. "Princess culture" and the "pink aisles" aren't a device of evil capitalists, and we're not their victims.

They're a device of parents and the other people who buy toys. Quick econ lesson for ya: In a capitalist system, consumers control the production of goods and services through demand. What people buy is what producers will make. If people buy a bunch of sparkly pink princessy stuff, that's what they'll make. If people buy pink kitchens, and pink baby dolls, and Barbies with tons of makeup on, that's what they'll make. A capitalist (a.k.a. "free") market also means we have the freedom to buy what we like and leave what we don't like on the shelf. So, if you want your daughters to play with trucks and dinosaurs, just walk 2 aisles over and there they are waiting for you. If you want your son to play with a kitchen or doll, just buy him one. It's that simple. Show toy makers what you want them to make more of by buying those toys and leaving the rest. You "vote" with your dollars. Our children aren't victims of evil toy makers. No one is trying to keep our daughters down. They're just doing smart business and trying to make their living like everyone else by giving consumers what they demand. Personally I'd much rather live in that society than one where toy makers make what they think is good for kids.

3. The bigger deal you make it, the bigger deal it becomes. 

Just like when a kid says a curse word, you don't want to make too big of a fuss over it because then they'll just keep saying it. She loves princesses. That ship has sailed. If I were to attempt to dissuade her, point her in another direction, or casually phase out the princesses it will just give them power. It's something she's attracted to, so when I start pulling her away from it she'll only want it more. Allowing her to indulge makes it just another thing we play, like sidewalk chalk and doctor, and much less likely to have some dramatic bearing on who she thinks she should be when she grows up.

4. I have no problem with domesticity, as society seems to. 

Why is it that we're so afraid of little girls playing princess or dolls or kitchen? We're afraid they'll grow up to cook and clean and raise children. God forbid! Guess what I do? Yup, I cook and clean and raise my children. I also have a Master's degree. I'm going to let you in on a secret... education, career and domestic life aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, I consider myself to have the best of it all. I'm doing what is more important to me than anything else in the world- raising my children, and I also have a solid education and degree that gives me the option to work on another passion of mine whenever I'm ready to. Sadly, society today doesn't respect domesticity as a vocation. We place value on high-powered careers above marriage, family and just about anything else. That's what I want to protect my girls from- growing up to feel like motherhood isn't a worthy choice. If they're not a highly-paid, highly-educated professional with a demanding, life-controling career then their life's work isn't valuable. Well, they are my life's work, and there is positively nothing more valuable on this planet or anything more worthy of my time, energy, creativity, or passion. I hope that they'll cherish our time together as much as I do, and that they'll want the same for their own children. None of which means they can't have a career and an education. There's plenty of time for that when babies are grown.

5. I parent, therefore it's not a big deal. 

Yes, if you park your child in front of Cinderella from the ages of 2-10 and never bother to cultivate any other interests or be any other kind of role model for her, then she'll probably grow up trying to be Cinderella. On the contrary, if you actually parent then you probably have nothing to worry about. We talk about and do all sorts of things in addition to playing princesses or babies or cooking in her play kitchen. We read together, we visit friends, we go to the library, we play at the playground, we do all types of art, we play music, we dance and sing, we run, we play ball. She loves many other things, she has many other interests, and she sees examples of strong, intelligent women all around her. I'm not even remotely concerned that playing princess is going to cause her to grow up believing she's helpless.

So, to all the moms & dads of little princesses out there: don't worry, you're not ruining them. Let them be themselves. Let them be little girls. Let them dress up, and dream, and imagine. Let them choose their toys and what color they want them to be, and it's ok if that's pink ;) Girls don't have to play with hammers and dump trucks to know their worth. They just need loving parents. Seriously, the rest is details.

Nap Training

Here I am at 2:30pm sitting down to eat a lunch that's been waiting for me for an hour now. I'm typing this with one hand because my other one is tucked under a sleeping 2 month old. The three year old is sleeping like the pro she is. She wasn't always an awesome sleeper though. Why do babies hate sleep? I will never know. That's why I'm giving Reagan the same treatment her sister got that turned her into an awesome sleeper.

Early on babies sleep all willy-nilly with no real schedule, but eventually for everyone's benefit, a schedule is necessary. Both of my girls started to develop a sleeping pattern on their own at which point I took the opportunity to solidify it. My strategy is simple. If you take the same nap every day for enough consecutive days, your body will not only be ready for that nap at that time of day, but will need it. But its not just as easy as putting the baby in bed at the same time each day. If I do that, she sleeps about 20 minutes before she begins squirming, farting, fussing, and is wide awake again. I could spend another 20 minutes getting her back to sleep so she could sleep another 20 minutes, but by then she's coming up on the next feeding time and it gets kind of pointless. Therefore, I hold the baby for as long as she'll sleep. For Reagan this afternoon nap has been as long as 3 hours, but often goes at least 2. After 3-4 days, she passes out right on time and sleeps pretty solidly for about 2 hours.

I am so looking forward to the predictability of a baby on a good napping schedule, the benefits of which include getting back to my regular cleaning & workout routines and obviously a better rested, more content baby :)

While we're waiting for all that, I got YouTube Capture on my phone which makes it much easier to share videos here. So, for your viewing pleasure, here is Carsen playing with two Wall-E toys this morning...

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWwkRDgFgB4?rel=0]

*Disregard the fact that it's sideways. It was in landscape-only mode and I recorded in portrait - oops!

Big Sister

One of the questions we've heard most in the past 3 weeks is - "How does Carsen like being a big sister?"

The answer is... she loves it.

First thing in the morning she asks to see her baby sister. I usually bring Reagan in with me and let them lay in Carsen's bed and talk to each other while I get Carsen's clothes for the day. Whenever we see friends or family, she excitedly introduces them to Reagan and holds her hand out Vanna White style to say, "See my sister? Her name is Reagan!" She talks to Reagan when she's fussy and stops mid-play to give her a little kiss on the head. She loves sitting next to her in the car and sings her songs while we're riding. Sometimes she even gets upset and cries if Reagan is really mad about something. So far I haven't gotten Carsen to change any diapers, but she does think it's awesome if I need her to help me out by holding something, bringing something to me, or talking to Reagan to calm her before I can get there. A lot of times even when one of us is holding Reagan, she'll run over and ask to see her, talk to her, or hold her. She has started designating two items {like stuffed animals} as "Carsen" and "Reagan" whereas she used to identify them generically as a mommy and a baby. And while it may be short-lived, she often tried to share what she has with Reagan - everything from raisins to Barbies. It's pretty adorable.

Of course, being 3 and a first child, Carsen also has moments where she wants us to hold her instead of Reagan. This usually happens when Reagan is fussy or hungry and needs to be held, or when Carsen is tired and particularly needy. Otherwise she is happy to play independently just like before Reagan arrived. I still make a point of holding her whenever I can since she has always been a snuggle-y girl. I hate for her to fee like she never gets to have that anymore now that there's a baby in the family. After all, she's still my baby, too :)

Snowman Lunch

To make a snowman lunch, simply cut 2 slices of bread into circles (mine were quite imperfect as I do not own cookie cutters), make a PB sandwich out of them, and use raisins and a baby carrot to create a snowman face!

It was a huge hit :)

Hand & Footprint Christmas Art

Two of our advent activities involved making art work with C's hand and footprints. A little redundant, possibly, but as I've emphasized in previous posts about our advent activities- this is for her and to do things together that are fun and Christmas-related. She loves to paint, and she especially loves when we paint her hands or feet to make a picture. It's simple, quick, and adorable. We now have two frame-worthy pieces to decorate and warm our home during the Christmas season while reminding us of sweet memories with our tiny girl.

Hand & Footprint Reindeer
We used regular tempera paint and an 8.5x11" sheet of white card stock (plain printer paper would be too thin and would wrinkle badly from the moisture of the paint). I started by painting her foot and pressing it onto the paper carefully. I also demonstrated to her (minus the paint) what we were going to do for each step before doing it so that she wouldn't think it was like finger painting where you swipe your hands all over the page to make the picture.

I painted her foot first and pressed it onto the center of the card stock toes up, heel down. Then I wiped it off with a damp paper towel (I had 4-5 nearby for this purpose). We painted her hands next, one at a time, and placed them at the top of the footprints to look like antlers. Finally, we used her thumb and first painted it black to make two eyes. Then we wiped it clean and painted it red to make a red reindeer nose.

In most other samples I've seen of this project the nose is all the way at the tip of the heel. For some reason when it was time to put the nose on, I just felt like that would look strange. We put ours in the middle and I think it turned out just fine. 

Handprint Christmas Tree

We did something very similar with her handprints and green paint to make a Christmas tree. Since we'd be using a series of many handprints that would be the same color, I just put some green paint on a paper plate and pressed her hand in it rather than painting her hand over and over again for each print. 

 She thought it was awesome that her hands were green like "Honk" (known to the rest of the world as the Incredible Hulk)

While undecorated (we were waiting for the handprints to dry) we will use some red paint on her finger tips to add berries/garland/"necklace" as she calls it, and some type of star at the top. 

Both of these projects took a total of about 10 minutes each. If you're doing it with multiple kids it will obviously take longer. You could use any kind of medium for the decorations too - googly eyes on the reindeer with a red pom-pom nose, felt or construction paper cut-outs for the tree decorations, glitter, you name it. We kept it simple since we're working with a 2-year old. Generally for that reason I avoid using glue and manytinypieces of anything. But with crafts like this, the sky is the limit. Perfect for those cold, dark December evenings after school or work when you can't go outside to play!

Has anyone else done cute holiday/Christmas hand or footprint art?? Tell us about it or link to it in a comment : )

Dressing a Toddler Girl

Every change of season we have the glorious task of replacing C's wardrobe. Ordinarily the thought of choosing all new clothes for her thrills me, but as she gets a little older the task has become more tedious. Maybe I'm picky, but this season especially I am totally disappointed in the options that are out there. First of all, let me say that we don't shop for toddler clothes in stores like Janie and Jack, or anywhere in the mall for that matter. As a one-income family I can't justify spending that kind of money on clothing that will be subject to the abuse of a toddler, not to mention grown out of in 6 months. I prefer stores like Carters, Kohls, and Target. We've had great luck with jeans, khakis and corduroys from the Jumping Beans line at Kohls and they are often on sale for less than $10 per piece. Now that the weather in the mid-Atlantic is cooling off (some days anyway, it's going to be a freakish 80 degrees on Wednesday) we need some long pants for C to wear. Short sleeves are still fine for now and she has a zip-up hoodie to wear over them if it's too chilly for short sleeves outside.

So off to Kohls we went this morning. I was in search of simple jeans, khakis or corduroys (preferably Jumping Beans since they've held up well for us in the past), some long pants/sleeved pajamas that are cotton (I know the polyester is flame-resistant but I hate it), and possibly a pair of play shoes. Luckily, I found all except the play shoes. The pajamas were easy, though I had to dig a little for the cotton ones. The pants were another story. When I say that the clothing section reminded me of a bag of skittles, I'm giving a conservative description. Every single piece of clothing was bright or neon colors and patterns, both tops and bottoms. I don't even know how you could possibly match them. How do purple leggings with orange polka dots match up with a turquoise top with a penguin in a winter hat on it? It was bordering on sensory overload and I am not good at shopping in chaos. I don't have a problem with children's clothing being colorful and fun, but certainly every inch of them does not need to be so wildly decorated. I would have just abandoned the scene and gone to Carters (who is apparently also having a disappointing love affair with the neon), but I had a 15% off coupon that I was determined to use. After digging, searching, digging, and more searching, I was thisclose to buying her boys' jeans because they were the only non-psychedelic pants I could find. Finally I found a pair of jeans and some tan corduroys. I didn't even bother with tops.

It was on to shoes at that point. My hopes were low. I had already searched online at Stride Rite, Carters, OshKosh, and Kohls only to find shoes that are hot pink, covered in glitter, or Dora the Explorer themed. Gag. It was no surprise that I found exactly that on the shelf at Kohls. There was one little pair of Nikes that were mostly gray with some hot pink detail which were somewhat acceptable, but they didn't have them in C's size. Even if they did I'm not sure I liked them enough to buy them. And so that search continues.

To give you an idea of what I'm dealing with, here is a sampling of the Stride Rite options I've seen...

See? No thank you. No thank you. No thank you.

Baby clothes are almost always tasteful. Even boy clothes are all classic colors- blue, green, orange, tan, black. Why must toddler girl clothes make it look like every day is Wacky-Tacky day?! I have never been a huge fan of wearing bright colors myself, but it would certainly be more tasteful even for a toddler if your top and leggings were not clashing neon colors and patterns. Little kids can still dress like little kids without looking psychotic. And I'm not sure the problem was that it was Kohls either since they also carry Carters and OshKosh in the store. Personally I blame whoever thought it was a good idea to bring back the 80s. That was my childhood. I remember it. It wasn't pretty then, and it ain't pretty now!

Here's to hoping there's better stuff out there by Christmas!

Sidenote: In many years you can look for the follow-up to this post titled, "What the @#$* is my Teenager Wearing?!" as I have a feeling this situation isn't going to get any better.