This is about as classic as it gets, sure it may just look like an ordinary picture of gracee dressing up. It is so much more than that... note the many rings, the "lapstick" in her right hand that she loves to rub all over her face, note the carefully placed bracelets, the dora pj's that she insists on wearing even though they have grown too snug, note the red sparkly shoes from aunt pam that she insists on wearing without socks and gets them stinky, just like many of her other shoes she has ruined with that permanent stench. (we keep confiscating them from her when we find her wearing them without socks), and last but not least the earrings and crown. The earrings actually really hurt her earlobes, but she thinks they look so pretty that she puts them on anyway and just endures the pain for as long as she can take it. Each time she brings them to me to put them on, she says, "but they won't hurt!" As if, to talk herself out of the pain the pinch brings.
When she would wear this crown she would come up to me and say, "I'm a princess." My line back is, "Why hello princess Gracee!" and then I kiss her hand. Well, one day she was really upset about something and without even skipping a beat she tore the crown off and bent it in her rage. She heard it snap and discovered that she had broken her crown. Her mark of deity, the sign of her refined, high class status...GONE. Just like that. Of course she made several futile attempts to get scotch tape and try to get me to fix it. She even tried the ol' instant gratification route: "but we'll buy a new one!!!???" Me: "No Gracee, it doesn't work that way. "
A couple weeks of mourning for the loss of the crown passed without her calling herself a princess. One day she put on one of her old necklaces and said, "look Mommy, I'm a princess." I was happy that she still felt like a princess without her beloved crown. "Maybe she has learned her lesson", I thought. I was afraid if I got one too soon, she'd get an unrealistic expectation for future tragedies...this could get costly. So I decided to have her WORK to earn her CROWN back. She has a chore chart that she has been working on filling up with stickers. When it is all full, we can go choose a new crown. I also remind her when she picks her nose and eats it and spits on the floor that princesses don't do that sort of thing either.
Yes indeed, spitting, picking, raging...queens don't do that, right? What do I hope she will learn from this? Not sure, something having to do with not destroying things in tantrums and embracing princess-like qualities I guess.
