I blogged a while back about Catie trying to sort of find her place in the world because of her less-girly, more-nerdy interests, and it’s funny to me how on the flip side of that, Lucy could not be more different. She is the epitome of the girly-girl.
While Catie has always been a Daddy’s Girl, Lucy is basically my mini-me. And I don’t mean that she looks like me — although if you put my baby pictures next to hers, it’s a little unsettling to see visual proof that I kind of gave birth to myself. But her personality is a lot like mine when I was a little girl: total goofball who wants to make everyone laugh, a little shy with new people but total snuggle-bug with the people she loves, and she has an insane imagination and acts out elaborate stories with her toys.
She’s my little shadow who wants to follow me everywhere. When I’m in the bathroom putting my make-up on, she wants to sit on the counter and play with my make-up too. I usually let her use some of my brushes/powder puffs. She likes the textures, the sensation of how they feel, but there’s no color or anything that will show up on her face. I bought her a Little Mermaid chapstick, mainly to keep her out of my lipstick, and she loved it. After she put the chapstick on about 15 times, I told her that was enough and we needed to put it away. A few minutes later, I found her hiding behind the couch with her chapstick, frantically reapplying it as fast as she could.
Lucy loves her baby dolls. She pretends to change their diapers and feed them, she tucks them in with their blankies, it’s really cute. And I say that as someone who generally finds baby dolls to be borderline creepy, but it’s still pretty sweet. And another example of how she’s different from Catie, because Catie has always loved stuffed animals, but could not give less of a crap about babies.
But Lucy’s main interest right now? Disney princesses. More specifically, Frozen. Lucy is all-Frozen, all-the-time. She loves other Disney princesses too, like Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty because “they have yellow hair like me!”, but let’s face it, the majority of the merchandise you see in stores right now is Frozen, so that’s the main thing on her little 3 year-old radar.
Back at Halloween, she couldn’t decide if she wanted to be Elsa or Anna, and my mom ended up buying both costumes, thinking we’d return one the day after Halloween.
Well, we haven’t returned either of them. Because she wears one of those costumes every single day. At least we’re getting our money’s worth out of them? I’ve made the rule that she can’t wear her costumes either to bed or to daycare, but other than that, she is always either Elsa or Anna.
Seriously. All the time.
My mom even made her a pink cape that looks like the one Anna wears in the movie.
Lucy’s Frozen obsession has gotten so severe that she – my child who used to scream when I approached her with a hairbrush – now regularly asks me to braid her hair. Sometimes she wants one long braid (“just one Elsa braid!”) or two (“like Anna wears!”).
On the up side: I’m getting really good at hair braiding.
(Don’t get me started about how the Anna costume went missing for a few days, and Lucy was distraught, and Dave and I were frantically texting each other, “Have you found it? I thought it was with you! I’ve looked everwhere!” Turns out Lucy had packed up her Hello Kitty suitcase with her Anna costume, as well her Anna and Kristoff Barbie dolls, because I don’t know, she was planning some type of Frozen-themed vacation and didn’t tell anyone?)
The main things on her Christmas list for Santa this year are all Frozen-related. Sure, she also wants a baby doll with its own stroller, but Frozen stuff is still top of the list.
And the thing is, I guess in theory I should be getting tired of it. I hear other parents talk all the time about how they’re so sick of the movie and the soundtrack and all of it, but I’m honestly not. I feel like this stage where she’s obsessed with princesses is so short and fleeting, and I just want to revel in it while it lasts.
I know the time is rapidly approaching when she’ll be more influenced by what her peers like, and all of the princess stuff will be dismissed as boring, dumb, and/or “just for babies” (which is what Catie says about princesses, although I have totally caught her secretly belting out “Let It Go” on more than one occasion).
So if Lucy wants to dictate to me whether I’m supposed to sing the Elsa or Anna part of “For the First Time in Forever,” well, I’ll be damned if I’m going to argue with her.
As great as I think it is that Catie sort of bucks traditional gender roles with her love of science and video games and all that stuff? I think it’s equally great that Lucy is a total princess-y girly girl. I don’t think one thing is more valid than the other. (I know the Disney princesses have some questionable at best feminist values in their movies, but I also know that most of us grew up with Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella — not to mention Barbie dolls — and for the most part, we all turned out ok.)
Mainly, I love seeing how Catie and Lucy are their own unique little people, how they’ve each individually gravitated toward the stuff that they like, and how they’re both just completely funny and wonderful in totally different ways.
