The Prissy Prissy Princess

Since the beginning of the summer, Norah has really started to blossom as a princess. I'm not sure how it has happened. I am not a fan of princesses. Or pink. Or things that are prim and proper. And, honestly, I had every intention of raising a daughter who wasn't a big fan of those things either. While I'm sure there is a place in the world for princesses and pink and frilly bits, I had hoped that place was other than my house.

Don't get me wrong. If you want a princess, more power to you. I just don't.

Yet, somehow, that's what I'm getting. Part of it is everyone else's fault. People LOVE to make little girl princesses--even Libby keeps buying princessy crap for her. Time and again, people give us frilly pink clothes and Barbie dolls and other ugh. And she eats it up.

Now, I'm not saying that boy toys are somehow superior and that Norah shouldn't be allowed to play with girly things or that somehow she'll grow up to be superior if she ignored all the girly stuff and became a tomboy.

Well, really, maybe that is what I'm saying. Boy toys ARE superior. Transformers? Come on! Look at the engineering that is involved in creating a toy that can be a robot AND a vehicle. Now look at the engineering involved in creating a Barbie. Yawn. Even a straight comparison of "action figures" vs. "dolls" comes out with action figures in the lead. Look at their accessories! Trucks and airplanes and guns and bases and rockets and lord knows what all. Now look at the accessories for dolls. Chairs and food and pink cars and clothes. Yawn. She'll have the rest of her life to think about where to put the ottoman, why waste childhood on that kind of garbage? Childhood is for adventure and fantasy and imagination! And boy toys whip hell out of girl toys for that.

And, I have to admit, because of Gabe's interests and the fact that he had a two year head start on building his toy collection, Norah does spend quite a bit of time playing with boy toys and, at least, incorporating them into her little doll worlds. And she's at least passingly accepting of watching his shows--though, the older she gets the more she realizes that she would rather be watching something else and, being the vocal type, isn't afraid to whine and pester Gabe and I until she gets what she wants.

But she is decidedly squeamish about many things. Rather strangely so, actually. Nonsensically so, even. Take bugs for instance. She hates them. In fact, she just hates the IDEA of bugs so much that, without rhyme or reason, that's the place her brain goes whenever she sees something she can't readily identify if it's roughly bug sized. Say there is a piece of lint on the floor. She doesn't really have the world experience necessary to understand why lint is, so, when she sees a piece on the floor, she's not sure what she's seeing. So she shouts "BUG!" and runs as far away from it as she possibly can.

And dirt is another thing. Time and again she complains about dirt and mud and being sticky or dirty. She claims to hate it. But she is completely inconsistent about it.

I've had videos on here before of them playing in the mud, so this is hardly news. And, really, I don't have anything NEW to add this time. But we filled their pool again the other day and then ran a little more water onto what used to be our lawn (which, thanks to this heat wave and the fact that we haven't had any measurable quantities of rain since May is mostly a crusty wasteland). And Norah went to town.

Here are some videos of them playing and stuff. I'm sure there is commentary that I SHOULD add, but I can't really remember the specifics of what was going on. Such is the state of my mental capacity these days, that I can't even remember what I record just a couple days later.

So there's the video. I got a few pictures of her just playing in the mud, too, and there IS a point that I'm going to make in relation to these pictures.

Splashing in a mud puddle. Not so prissy.

Further splashings.

Ah, adorable. Actually, she wasn't making some sort of coquettish pose here. She was trying to dig some dirt out of her mouth. But that's the nice thing about still pictures. They can be whatever you want them to be.

And NOW we get to the point . . . .

See this water? Norah refused to play in it. She declared it to be "too dirty." Note that this water GOT this dirty because they were playing in mud and then washing themselves off in the pool. Still and all, even though her logic eludes me, I AM happy that she's willing to play in the mud still without any problems, even if she won't get into muddy water. So maybe I'm not losing the princess battle entirely.

Yeah, I know. That wasn't much of a point to be making, was it? Kind of a lot of build up for not much payoff.

How about a picture of Gabe with a dirty Hitler mustache and soul patch? Does that make this whole thing more worthwhile? I thought so.