rudderless

Halloween

I am relieved to say that Sophie’s princess phase has not been as lengthy or scary or obsessive as I’d feared it would be. I think it started with her learning the story of Cinderella. We tried to emphasize the KIND and GOOD part of Cinderella’s nature. I think more than anything she digs the pageantry and the tangential connection to dancing. Balls! Cinderella goes to balls! And it is a good story, with the fairy godmother and all.

So Sophie was a princess for Halloween. In a thrifted ballet costume with fake flowers. Rosy was her sidekick “baby princess.” In Sophie’s ballet dress. We whipped up the matching crowns Halloween morning, and admittedly I was thrilled that she was happy with my abstract fabric interpretation and didn’t insist upon a plastic glittery fire hazard. If this is as princessy as we get, I’m pretty pleased. And thank you, friends and relatives, for not calling my children “princesses,” now or ever.

Her current obsessions are Gnomes and Fairies. My sister and I had a brilliant pop-up Gnome book when we were little. I remembered it so fondly that I trolled Amazon looking for a used copy. We got it the other day and Sophie was as mesmerized as I was. She immediately latched onto the idea that gnomes help animals in the forest and collected gnome offerings all afternoon, in hopes that they might protect our house too. We’re animals too, after all.

Today we got Tracy Kane’s Fairy Houses book in the mail. It’s seriously wonderful. We read it at least eight times and had to look at every picture after each reading. She has grand plans to find fairy house material tomorrow and start building so that one day she can see fairies. I love that the book ties butterflies to fairies, as this whole nature-offering stuff began with the butterflies in Maine. I want her to have some magic, to believe in something that’s not spoon-fed or overly commercialized. I love this direction. I’m excited to see where it takes us.