How To Be A Princess

This week the girls and I watched Anne of Green Gables. On VHS, mind you.  Harper wasn’t that into it.  She wondered when the “kid part” was coming.  Meaning, “Where are the cartoons?”  Hadley, on the other hand, loved it.  She was a little concerned about the folks in the movie who were being mean to Anne, and she is suspicious of Marilla, but she got a kick out of  the movie and of course this pleases me to know end. Harper will get on board soon, I’m sure.

I’ll say though, that I have a particularly difficult time every time Matthew comes on camera. Good gracious, that guy doesn’t have to say a word and I start to sob.  He’s just so sweet.  The girls thought I was insane because he’d be in a scene and I’d start to cry.

“What’s sad about this part, Mama?” Hadley asked.

“Nothing.”

“Then why are you crying?”

“Because Matthew’s so sweet!”

At any rate, we like the movie and a few mornings ago Hadley walked into our bedroom at the crack of dawn wanting to have a tea party like Anne and her bosom friend Diana.  This concerned me a little since that’s the point in the story where Diana accidentally gets drunk and the two can no longer be friends anymore. (That part in the forest where they swear to always be friends gets me every time, too.) Hadley seemed to not take note of that part. What she wanted to do was get out my grandmother’s fancy tea set. And instead of having tea, she wanted chocolate milk.

So she set the table, and I made some snacks and chocolate milk and the three of us had tea.

Hadley’s being “royal” in the picture.  Note the posture, the subtle smile, the napkin on her lap. Harper caught on afterwords, and she added a “royal” accent as she spoke.  This prompted a conversation about the way princesses should act.  We were no longer on Prince Edward Island with Anne and Diana.  We were princesses.

Harper needed her chocolate milk stirred and was nervous about spilling it so I helped her.

“Princesses should never ask for help,” Hadley said in her royal voice.

“Princesses can ask for help.  Sometimes they need some help,” I said as I stirred.

“Yes, Hadley,” Harper said. “Sometimes princesses need help getting down from high towers.”

“Sometimes,” I added, “princesses go up to high towers on their own and bring friends with them who haven’t seen the view from that high.”

 

Once, when Jesse and I were dating, I took him to the top of the John Hancock to see the city. Not being a huge fan of heights, he was a tad reluctant, but I think he liked it. I pointed out my dad’s office, and the Eisenhower Expressway that would take us to Oak Park. We walked around the other side to see the lake and parts of Indiana where we’d live one day, though we didn’t know it then. You can see a lot from the top of a tower, I think.

 

Hadley decided that the sandwich she was eating looked like Frankenstein (I don’t know how she knows what Frankenstein looks like) and proceeded to make him talk and walk around the table.

“Hadley, that is not royal,” Harper said.

Hadley slammed Frankenstein on my Grandma’s plate and said, “Harper! I don’t have to be royal all the time!”

That was the beginning of the end of tea and my cue to suggest we do something else.  We cleaned up, and went outside.

To play in the mud,

and make a playground,

for the dinosaurs.

I think Anne, Diana, and probably all the princesses would approve.