One Woman’s World

Extra, Extra! Read all about it, and view below a picture of the unthinkable. A snapshot of Laylee and the Bean using their forks as Disney intended. It’s a good thing Grammy has extra forks so we can scrounge up clean ones after Bean and Laylee lose their minds and comb their hair at the dinner table.

The indoctrination, I tell you. It runs wild. My two-year-old’s voice saying, it’s a dingle HOPPer! Well, folks, I just can’t stand it, it’s that cute.

And to Catherine, who commented on my last post: Yes, I know that the Disney Princess mentality can cause some degree of unrealistic expectations for life. No, I’m not sure how to combat that. I came from a family where imagination and fantasy played a vital role. I don’t feel scarred by that experience. I feel blessed by it. But I can understand your concern. How to protect my child from future disillusionment and sorrow, I don’t know. I am taking your comment seriously. Does anyone have any suggestions?

We have recently come into a little family togetherness time with some of my immediate family members. It doesn’t happen all that often, so we must take advantage of it while it happens. And let me just say that it feels GOOD. There are lots of late-night games of Ticket to Ride, Guillotine, Rook, Wizard, and just other general silliness. We really have a great time together. There is also the interesting sight of my two-year-old Bean as the bridge between almost four-year-old Laylee, and one and a half year old Magoo. Bean gets the best of both worlds, really. With Magoo she gets to lead out in fun games like “Let’s log-roll all over each other and the floor.” She also enjoys a game where both of them fall down on the floor, then they giggle and giggle and pick themselves back up to try it again. Bean and Magoo get along famously.

But let’s face it. Laylee is a lot more fun. Laylee is just older and cooler enough to make Bean’s head just about explode with the joy of it all. Laylee can answer back when asked Bean’s favorite question–What’s your name? Of course, after about the 15th repeat of that question in their first five minutes together, Laylee had to appeal to Auntie Heather to make it stop. Anyway, with Laylee, the play is not so much games as full-scale indoctrination. Laylee will see the Bean educated before the family togetherness time is over, so help her! And Grammy is complicit in this effort.

Before this trip, the only Disney Princess Bean was familiar with was Ariel. When the day came that I heard Papa trying to get Magoo to say “tractor” and Beanie interjected, “How ’bout Aurora?” I knew that Laylee and Grammy’s work was complete. Ladies and Gentlemen, Bean has officially drunk the kool-aid, and I love it. Bean keeps running for her new princess puzzle, and we play a memory game. It is so cute I can’t stand it to see the two kids curled up together on a couch watching the princesses. It is somewhat less cute when Bean spends the first fifteen minutes of our church women’s meeting loudly proclaiming the names Ariel and Eric as she sees each page in a Disney coloring book.

It all seems like a first step towards watching my little girl’s girly personality grow. Pretty soon she’ll be painting her toenails and shopping for prom dresses and curling her own hair. I can feel my hair graying.

“I have drunk from the keg of glory, Donna. Bring me all the finest muffins and bagels in the land.”
–Just a little West-Wing-age for those fans among you.

I am so happy this week. Sometimes when I can’t find time to blog, it’s because I’m in a funk. This week, it’s because I’m so busy being on top of the world.

I started Nanowrimo this last Wednesday. At the end of my first week, I’m still ahead of schedule. And I realized something new. I finally like writing. I like it. I love it.

I’m enjoying more than just the feeling of having written. I’m enjoying putting the words down and exploring characters and crafting sentences. I feel like a writer. And while for a month I am hardly a blogger, at the end of that month I will have a novel. My main character is a blast. I love her voice. I love writing in first person. I love it love it love it.

I have also discovered my niche, I think, in YA fiction. I really struggled through my NaNoWriMo fantasy novel from last year. It is just so darn much harder to have to imagine the foods people would eat . . . and when you realize that their breakfast is a kind of porridge, then you wonder what grain they’re eating. Is it a grain that exists on earth as we know it, or should you name it. And what kind of basin or bowl do they use to consume it. WAY too hard for a one-month novel.

So this year I’m writing about teens who go to the high school where I was a teacher. Not teens I knew, mind you, or even teachers I knew. All the characters are purely fictitious, but let me just say that writing about teenagers in high school in Utah is a LOT easier. When it’s time for breakfast, I can have them grab the cheerios and milk. Aaaaaah.

And in Bean news: In the last month Bean has started quoting movies a lot more. Like the other day in the car she asked me to shake her hand, and then witheld a handshake from me, saying “Don’t shake, unless you mean it.” — Emperor’s New Groove.

And like when she walks around shaking her head and repeating, “Not Happy, Bob. Not Happy.” — The Incredibles

Or when she raises anything that might possibly pass as a goblet and shouting, “To Kuzco!” — Groove again

Or when she crawls around on all fours growling and saying, “Alex eat. Alex HUNgry!” — Madagascar

Just in case you wondered where I was, or what had happened to me. I’m still sane. I’m still alive. I’m having a blast. I’ll be back to more posting in December.

Until next time,
Hasta.