08 April 2008

Princess Sita

Curious Girl came up with the title, and she wishes this post could be written in cursive. So use your imaginations on that score. This post is inspired by Librarian Mom and her princess-loving daughter, who got it from Alkelda the Gleeful, whose blog I've never read but will now start because how could anyone not love a name like Alkelda the Gleeful?

We're off to househunt (and me to do some consulting) in Germany! So wish us good househunting vibes, and here's a quick guest blog by Curious Girl herself, with help from Mama.

What do you like about princesses?

They're girls. They're my favorite thing in the whole wide world, because they are all my favorite princesses.

What do princesses do?

Dance.

When you pretend to be a princess, what do you like to do?

Dance. I was Ariel last night and I was swimming with Snow White's baby sister, and she was scared. I said, "It's OK, do you want your sister to come with us?" and she said "goo goo, yes." And then she changed her mind and so Ariel and Baby Sister went swimming alone, and then we did a pattern, and I got so tired swimming I almost fell right down when I was swimming I was so tired. But I didn't! And Phew! That's good.

When I'm Belle, Belle and Cinderella both live in a cottage together. We saw ABC things all over the place. We, Belle and Cinderella, thought the people who do the ABCs a lot, this would be their cottage, so we would take a little walk and went out for a walk in the woods, and we saw candies everywhere! And that was the track. So we picked them up and followed the candy track, and always picked them and picked them and picked them, and when we got home, there was the ABC girl. And we were like "Is that you, ABC Girl? Can we go to your house?" And her hair was all fancy just like ours. She was going back home and she didn't see much candy because we hid it all in her house so she got lost. And that was the track to her house. She was lost almost forever, but not forever, finally. She didn't get home in time for supper but after everyone was asleep and all the wolves and scary things were out, she was home.

What do princesses do that is good?

They kill bad guys with their magic powers. They are kind, isn't that good? They don't be scary, and that is so good.

What are some princess stories that you like?

Cinderella and Belle and Sleeping Beauty, Mulan. Editor's note: we don't actually read a lot of princess stories around here--you can get a good sense of Curious Girl's princess play ideas from her answers so far. But I'm looking forward to her being old enough for Patricia Wrede's Dealing with Dragons and its sequels. Cimorene, Wrede's heroine, is a kindred spirit to Elizabeth, The Paperbag Princess, with a much longer plot and series. And Lauren Child's Princess and the Pea is beautiful, although the humor is a bit over CG's head at the moment.

Anything else you want to say about princesses?

Once upon a time, we were in Disneyland, and when we were in Disneyland, we saw princesses. We went to Belle's area, and there were some princesses I haven't met yet (ed. note: Jasmine and Mulan) and I was so excited to see them. We met each other, and we met each other again at lunch. I liked talking to Belle, and Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella told us stories.

I lost two teeth. I wish I could draw the tooth on the computer. (ed. question: when will Blogger add the KidPix tool?)


7 comments:

Saints and Spinners said...

Hi! Thanks for the shout-out. I'm going to link yours and Librarian Mom's interviews to my princess interview post. I've been offline (blogging) for a few days, and didn't even know that LM had done it.

kathy a. said...

oh, this is the cutest.

ElsKushner said...

Wow! This is great! Thanks for the Librarian Mom shout-out, too.

niobe said...

So what's the underlying psychological/cognitive tropism that makes princesses so attractive to little girls? Someone cleverer than me must have given this some thought.

elswhere said...

Niobe--it's a way to be powerful and still girly. (and you might think, well, why not a queen, then? But queens are womanly, not girly.) Preschoolers are all about power and gender roles (partly since they're just learning how to categorize, and gender is one mighty powerful category in our culture), so they look for the most powerful and most gendered thing they can pretend to be.

There is more--lots more! lots lots more!-- to say about this but now must work...

kathy a. said...

elsewhere, well said.

the princess thing [and its counterpart with boys: valient warrior] took me by surprise, since we tried to raise our babes to be decent humans and avoid the stereotypes. but we were dufus parents; didn't realize that these developmental stages are almost impossible to avoid, as are cultural influences. for example, i kept my son away from any violence and guns and whatnot, but by age 2, he was using anything longer than it was wide as a weapon [banana, legos, you name it].

all i can say now is, they outgrow it.

Suburban Gorgon said...

Hah. It's princess central in the Gorgon household. The Kraken won't wear pants because princesses apparently don't. When I pointed out that Jasmin did, she decided to give all the Jasmin valentines to all the boys in her class. Sigh. What's a momma to do?