Putting Away Childish Things

We have waited six long months for this time to come.  I had pictured our trip to Disney as something of a going away party for the Princesses.  A last hurrah.  Sophie and the gals would sit around a table, share a few drinks, have a few laughs over the strangest places they had appeared in their gowns—grocery stores, dental offices, the JCC.  Then, when the time had come to finally say goodbye, they would cry bitter crystalline tears as if their hearts would break.  Woodland animals would gather and widen their eyes sympathetically.  Handsome princes would appear suddenly, from behind dark red velvet curtains to rest one gloved hand gently on their shoulders and issue reassurances, “There, there.”  And Sophie would put away these childish things in favor hot pants and tube tops, like a normal American 6-year-old. 

There have been small signs that it is time.  For one, Sophie announced one evening that her favorite color was no longer pink.

I think I might have gasped.  Then, trying to be all nonchalant, I said, “Really?  Why is that?”

This is what she said: 

“You know how sometimes, someone makes a face and you think its funny.  Then they make the face again, and it’s not funny anymore. “

“Yes, I know just what you mean.”

“That’s why.”

The second sign was the gradual disappearance of her Belle dress—the yellow confection I had bought for her a year ago for Halloween.  The one that if she wasn’t wearing, she was begging to wear.  The one that is shredded under the armpit, it’s yellow satin skirts edged with dirt.   For months after she got it, like Mr. Rodgers, when she came home at the end of the day, she shed her school clothes and slipped on her gown.  On the weekends, it would be on before breakfast Saturday, and there it would remain until I could finally peel it off her body Sunday evening. 

Though I found her obsession somewhat disturbing.  I kept hearing from others, “Enjoy it.  This is a phase.  There will come a time where she won’t be caught dead in a princess dress.”  And I noted that her six-year-old friend Margo passed up a series of flouncy frocks in favor of her own snazzy skirt and boots.  “She’s over it, ”her mother whispered to me, “she’s much more into what the older girls are wearing.”

And sure enough, her beloved Belle dress has been sitting crumpled in a corner of her closet, the detritus of childhood, items loved intensely and discarded: Baby Pink, a soft doll that rattled when she gave it a sound thrashing each morning when she woke in her crib, a series of boxes within boxes that I would build into towers she knocked over with glee, rubber puzzles, brittle with age, that we inherited from Kevin’s mother. 

I had long wondered how Sophie would react to seeing her heroines in the flesh.  Would she rush at them, a deranged fan, ready to snatch a bit of their silken locks, from their elaborately styled wigs?  Would she freeze, paralyzed by an existential crisis—when your dreams come true, what else is there to do?  Or was she already so old that she would walk the line between wonder and skepticism.  “That’s not the real Belle, Mom….is it?”

The first sighting was of Merida, a.k.a. Brave, who as surrounded by velvet ropes and several Disney heavies.  “Merida won’t be seeing anyone for another twenty minutes,” a woman with a clipboard chirped.

“That’s okay,” said, Sophie.  “I can see her from here.” 

If I wanted to ensure Sophie got to see a princess up close and personal, it was apparent that I’d have to “fastpass” one.  So, when Sophie and Kevin were riding on something called the Barnstormer, I made an appointment to see Rapunzel, popping our thumbprint activated Disney pass cards into a machine that spit out three tickets for 6 pm.

We still had some time, so I suggested that we check out Belle’s Storybook Castle before it was time to see Rapunzel. 

The concept was brilliant.   Children who volunteer are assigned roles to act out a play with Belle and given a laminated prop.  Part of the brilliance is that no one gets to be Belle, which might have caused a riot or a domino-like effect of one preschooler after another having an extreme meltdown.  Sophie was very pleased to be the French feather duster, which had a non-speaking role, and, in the program, would have fallen under “ensemble.” 

The parents sat in rows and watched their children take turns roaring (the Beast), or hopping (Ms. Potts and Chip), or doing nothing (the Feather Duster) at Belle’s side, while a photographer snapped a shot of each.  For each pose, Belle stretched her menacingly red lips into a semblance of a smile, then gently pushed the child in the direction of another “cast member” who snatched the prop from the child.

We emerged from the Storybook House just in time for our date with Rapunzel.  At the Princess Fairytale Hall, we handed in our fast passes and hurried down miles of corridors designed for hours of waiting.  Next to a velvet curtain stood Rapunzel, in yards of purple satin, with pounds of golden hair in a plait that hung heavily down her back.  She beckoned to Sophie, a delicately boned hand indicating that they should stand together.  Sophie uncharacteristically burrowed her face into my skirts.  No amount of coaxing from Rapunzel would lure her away from me.  Finally, I hobbled over next to Rapunzel, shrugged, and posed awkwardly for a picture of me, the princess, and Sophie cowering between my legs. 

Next up was Snow White.  She was good this one.  Lots of affectation—placing her hand over her heart, touching her cheeks with both hands, then raising them both in the air in a pose of mock surprise.  Sophie was drawn in.  She pulled away from me and drifted towards the princess.  Snow White bent down, cupped her ear, and proceeded to whisper, secretively, into it.  Sophie smiled, nodded, and whispering back. 

When she returned, I asked, “What was all that whispering about?”

“My missing tooth!”   

But all of this was just foreplay for the main princess event.  We had reserved three spots at a princess luncheon in Norway the last day of our vacation. 

That morning, Sophie donned her yellow dress.  I stared at the shredded armholes.  “Soph,” let me fix your dress.  Sophie eyed me warily.  

“Trust me, when I’m done with it, it will look better, fit better and feel cooler.”  She reluctantly handed it over to me.  I ripped out the sleeves, sewed up the hems and handed it back.  “Voila!”  Sophie admired her doctored frocks, while I, feeling like a fairy godmother, sealed up the velcro closure in the back. 

As we marched through Epcot, Sophie was repeatedly greeted as if she was Belle.  “Hello Princess!”  “It’s Belle!  How are you today, Belle!”  “What a beautiful dress, Princess.”  Clearly they had been trained to do so.  Disney was a system that reinforced the devout.  Sophie recoiled from these overtures.  I couldn’t tell if they embarrassed her, or if she mistrusted them somehow.   Or maybe, just maybe, she was uncomfortable wearing her dress in public? 

The Akershus Royal Banquet Hall was something to behold.  It was designed to look like a Medieval castle:  stone archways, cathedral ceilings, tapestries.  As soon as we walked in, we were led over to Belle.  “We have the same dress!” she exclaimed happily. They embraced for the photographer, and an imported Norwegian led us to our table. 

As we finished our appetizer and then main course, with nary a princess in sight, I began to get suspicious,  “Kevin.  I think the princesses are ignoring us!”

“I’ve been watching them, “ he said, watching them, “We’re not in their flight pattern.” 

The waitress came back to see if she should remove our plates.  “We haven’t seen any princesses yet,” I told our waitress, sadly.  She looked surprised. 

“It’s probably because you came in early,” she scolded in her Norwegian accent.  “I will make sure the princesses come visit you.  Keep your plates, and I’ll hold off on bringing out dessert.” 

Moments later, Alice was at our table.  Not a princess, Sophie pointed out.  “But probably a BFF,” I suggested.  Sophie accepted this and posed daintily with Alice, mirroring her by holding out her skirt.  

Each then arrived in turn.  First Cinderella, who, with startled blue eyes, looked like she might have just lost her glass slipper.  Then Aurora, with a severe, pinched look who, Kevin thought, was just a little too thin.  Finally, Ariel arrived, appearing distracted as if she had a boat to catch.  Each stood for a photo, before rushing off to the next table.  Sophie was glowing.  She eagerly stood for the princess procession and followed Cinderella throughout the castle in a parade of children, most of whom were too young to comprehend what was going on or to ever remember this moment. 

This wasn’t feeling like closure to me.

I did Disney, and now, I was done.  But was Sophie?

On our first day back, Sophie threw an outfit together, ripped leggings, a sparkly Hello Kitty shirt with a glittery headband to match, heart socks and sandals.   It has been a very long time since Sophie volitionally donned anything but a dress.

“Rips in your pants are very fashionable,” she informed us, striking several poses before she ran across the street to show her friend her new look. 

A Place Safe from Fear

There was a thick volume of Grimm’s fairy tales in my hometown library that I read over and over again.  I would pull it down from the shelf and sit on the floor, knees to chest, swept into another place by stories of beauty and horror.  The library was an old building, made of stone and must.  The rooms were cramped and cozy, so packed with books that there was little room to squeeze by.  It was the perfect place to probe my fear.  Where, safe from the real world, I could grapple with death and betrayal.  Where I learned about loyalty and love.  Grimm’s fairy tales were far more gruesome than anything I encountered in suburban life.  They promised that whatever my experience was, it could be worse.  Somehow, I found this reassuring.

Who wouldn’t want their child to know these morally ambiguous tales? These stories open up a conversation, if not with others, in one’s own mind, about right and wrong, darkness and light, fear and love. 

Sophia was only three when I introduced her to my own abridged crumbling copy of Grimm.  I read her a pre-Disney version of Cinderella.  In which, birds on Cinderella’s mother’s grave dress her in finery for the ball—not a fairy Godmother, and the step sisters hack off parts of their foot so that they might squeeze into Cinderella’s slipper, only to be returned as false brides, when they leave a trail of blood as the prince carries them off.  When I finished, Sophie squealed:

“Read me the part with the blood again!”  She loved its gory truth almost as much as I did. 

Here is the great irony:  I go to great lengths to protect Sophia from violent imagery on television—from the news, adult dramas, and cartoons that either horrify or numb one to death and destruction.   These potent images leave nothing to the imagination.  They are what they are.  And they either get stamped on one’s brain (I will never forget the scene in Carrie where the other girls threw sanitary napkins at her in the shower, which, by the way, I found much more frightening than the knives flying into her mother, the blood being poured over her head at the prom, or the hand that reached through the earth at the end.) Or, they are easily forgotten among heaps of expendable bodies. 

But I will let her read these stories.  Stories of which she must conjure the images out of her own dark self.  Stories that take on her fantasy of what is most fearsome.  Or not.  She has control over what she sees.  She becomes its mistress.  Her fear conforms to what she can handle. 

And in turn it makes the world more tolerable.  A place safe from fear. 

“Mommy!  Come look at what I read in the newspaper!” She is excited.  Just a week ago she said, hopefully, “Maybe next year I will read a newspaper!”  Apparently, she has discovered she can. 

“Just a minute Sophie.”  I have just stepped out of the shower.  My hair is dripping down my neck.  My body is still too damp to put on my clothes.  “I have to get dressed.”

It is 7:30.  Sophie is dressed, but she has her polka dot robe knotted tightly over her tutu, “to be cozy.” 

I come into the kitchen, where Sophie is kneeling on a chair, pen in hand.  She has been doodling on the paper.  There are hearts all along the top and a dark underline scribbled beneath one article. 

“Listen to this:  ‘Dr. Kermit Gosnell is charged with killing seven babies born alive.” 

I am horrified.

Sophie, however, is exhilarated.  Her eyes are shining with delight.  “I can read it by myself mom!” 

“Sophie, what do you think about what you just read?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, how does it make you feel?”

She thought for a minute.  “Sad.” 

I nodded.  “Me too.” 

“Why did he kill those babies, mom?” 

“I don’t know.  Some people do terrible things. “  She was still listening.  “But you know, it’s my job to protect you.  It’s my job and daddy’s job to do whatever we can to keep you safe.”

“I know,” Sophie replied.  “And grandma.  And grandpa too.  And my teachers.” 

“That’s right. All those people keep you safe.”  She looked content.  Unperturbed. 

Of course, I was the one who has already seen too many terrible things.  Who could see those babies.  Who wanted to sob at the thought.  For Sophie it was a witch.  A wolf.  A bad guy.    Read about in a safe place to probe her fear.    

There's a Gown for That

Headed out to the library? Confused about what to wear? Ask Sophie. There’s a gown for that.

Going up to Grandma’s and its freezing out? There’s a gown for that.

Need to pick up a forgotten ingredient at Wegmans, but your pink taffeta is in the wash? Don’t worry. There’s a gown for that too.

These days, I am either picking gowns up off the floor, prying dirty gowns off Sophia’s body, or arguing their inappropriateness. They are slowly, insidiously taking over her wardrobe.

It started fairly innocently. The first gown, a rainbow-tutued Cosco nightmare, was purchased by my mother. It came with matching wings. Sophie was delighted. So were the neighbor girls. Sophie would resort to fisticuffs if anyone lay a finger on it, and it was soon evident that if we didn’t stock up, there might be bloodshed.

My friend Emily came to the rescue, passing on several silken frocks that no longer fit her daughter. Peace was restored in the kingdom.

Then, in need of some new duds myself, Sophie and I went to TJ Maxx. As I piled a few garments into our shopping cart, Sophie said, “I want to try on something too!” Okay, fair enough. This might even be a good strategy—keep her occupied. I grabbed the first thing that I thought might appeal to her—a pink velour generic princess dress. Sophie grabbed it out of my hands, “OH I LOVE THIS MOM!” Inside the dressing room, as I tried to eye my butt from all angles in front of the mirror, Sophia pushed me aside, exclaiming, “I’m so BEAUTIFUL! Can I have it? Please? PLEASE?” She skipped out of our stall, prancing down a narrow hallway towards the three-way mirror at the far end. Other women heard her exclaiming over the dress and leaned out to see what all the fuss was about. “Oh look at you!” “Aren’t you the cutest!" "Oh mom, you have to get it for her.” Sophie mugged and grinned and posed, and I quickly realized that I was not getting out of TJ Maxx without this dress.

“We’ll see…” I said, drawing upon the rich tradition of evasiveness that exists in my maternal line. But, of course, I left with the dress.

Little did I know, it would become Sophie’s daily uniform, a major point of contention, and probably, the most appreciated thing I have ever given her.

When Sophie wakes up in the morning, the first thing she does is don her princess dress, several necklaces, a headband or tiara, silver slippers and grab her magic wand. Then, she heads into my room to tap me awake. Were her magic as strong as caffeine, I might be able to roll with this program. But, alas, polyester and plastic do not confer any real powers, and the only effect this has is to make me very, very grumpy.

Her first question is, “Can I wear my princess dress to breakfast?” to which, if this is a day when she has to go to school and I have to go to work, the answer is no. This frequently devolves into a wrestling match. Tuesdays are the worst, when she has gymnastics and, because there is tumbling involved, I insist on pants. Pants have become abhorrent to Sophia. It began with a hatred of jeans. If I tried to pull them on, she’d scream, “NO! They’re too scratchy! They’re too stiff!” This squared with her whole sensory-defensive thing, so I didn’t force the issue. No skin off my nose. She seemed okay with leggings for awhile. But, once she discovered gowns, she started rejecting anything that had a whiff of masculinity. Anything that wasn’t “beautiful.”

At first I was disturbed by her princess aesthetic—for one, it was alien to me. My mother likes to talk about how she used to have to steal my jeans to wash them once a week because otherwise, I would wear them every single day. “They could practically stand up and walk away by themselves,” she told each of my boyfriends.

I was a self-proclaimed tomboy. When I was four, I told my friend Christine that I wanted to have all the boy toys in the world. I also told her that I could push a nail into board with my bare hands.

I couldn’t.

But I really, really wanted to be able to. I don’t think pushing a nail into a board with her bare hands has ever occurred to Sophie.

And then there’s the whole feminist thing. I just don’t like her holding up princesses as a feminine ideal—the simpering, need-to-be-rescued, will-give-up-my-fishtail-to-be-with-the-man-I-love thing. Haven’t I supplied her with a better model than that? What happened to her aspirations of dentistry? Of all the things she thought she could and wanted to be—a daddy, a dance teacher, a bus driver?

But, then I unearthed my old copy of Grimm’s fairy tales. We were sitting in the doctor’s office when I read the “real” story of Cinderella to Sophia. It’s far more gruesome than the sanitized Disney version, e.g., when the stepsisters try on Cinderella’s slipper, they each slice off a section of their foot to make it fit. I hesitated over this part. I didn’t want to give the kid nightmares. But when I finished, Sophia exclaimed:

“Read the part about them cutting off their toes again!”

Ah! There are my genes!

The fact of the matter is, I really loved—love—fairytales. I love the drama of good triumphing over evil, of there being a reward for suffering. I love magical possibility. I love talking animals and kids who outsmart witches and wishes that come true. And so does Sophie. She wears her gowns, not to emulate Disney princesses, but to fully inhabit the world of pretend. At naptime, I prick her finger with a spindle so she’ll sleep deeply. Before dinner, I might suddenly cross the floor on all fours, my eyes round and threatening and Sophia will shriek with delight, “What are you? WHAT ARE YOU?” And after we’ve eaten, I might roast her arms and legs in the oven for dessert. Sophie offers up a piece to her father, “Daddy, would you like my tickle bone?”

The gowns are the vehicle. Not steering her toward a feminine ideal, but down the rabbit hole, into a world of fantasy. She manages to look stunning while retaining every bit of her wild, dark, vicious self.

Feeling sinister? There’s a gown for that.

Our Visit to One Hundred Acre Wood

Am I disappointed?

Tonight, Kevin and I took Sophia to see her first movie. I had built it up in my mind. Perhaps because my own first film had left such a deep impression, and not an entirely positive one. I was four when my mother took me to see a double feature: Cinderella and Escape from Witch Mountain. Cinderella had also been my mother’s first film. I only vaguely recall Cinderella—the songs stand out in my mind, and Cinderella’s brilliant transformation orchestrated by her benevolent fairy godmother, but ultimately it was too benign, too milquetoast to have taken up serious nerve cell real estate. I do remember Escape from Witch Mountain. Vividly. Animated, Cinderella was clearly not real. But EFWM, with live action, was terrifyingly possible. Consider the plot: two seemly normal, alien witch children are stranded on our planet and desperately trying to make their way home. At four, when one tends to still straddle the line between fantasy and reality, I was a believer. I managed to keep it together until the male protagonist played a harmonica and magically made clothing get up and dance. That’s when I started screaming. I believe I had to be carried out of there.

I had it in my head that Sophie’s first movie should also be Cinderella, but with Disney keeping their classic films on lockdown in a mythical vault so they can re-release them at great profit, it didn’t look like that was going to happen. But then I picked up a $1 copy on VHS at the library, and we decided to go retro and purchase an almost-obsolete VCR. I regretted that her first movie would be on television—I pictured a much grander experience—an old movie house with red velvet seats and curtains that parted for the film, like Upstate Films in Rhinebeck, my second home when I was in college. But, it was a small concession to be able to continue the Cinderella tradition.

Sophie sat between Kevin and me on the futon. She was atwitter with excitement. I had a hard time holding back the tears as Cinderella, sweetly wakened by her rodent friends, sang in her attic room, “A dream is a wish you heart makes, when you’re fast asleep….” Sophie, who had only experienced ambient television up to this point, was rapt. She popped her thumb in her mouth, removing it only occasionally to laugh at the antics of the cat and mice. In fact, she seemed more taken with their slapstick comedy then the more complicated fairy tale plot line. But she must have understood the bare bones of it because, immediately after, she wanted to re-enact the story, from beginning to end. And for the next several weeks she would play Cinderella to my wicked stepmother, joyfully sponging the kitchen floor and dusting the living room furniture. (An unanticipated—but welcome—side effect.)

I wasn’t against introducing Sophia to a movie-theater movie, but I had a hard time finding one that would fit my criteria: slow, animated, wholesome and not scary. I also hoped to find a theater that lacked an assaultive sound system and wouldn’t preface the film with twenty minutes of commercials. I don’t think they exist anymore. Kevin says that my annoyance is evidence that I’m getting old.

Then, one day, as Kevin and I headed back from the farmers market in the center of town, he pointed out an advertisement on the side of the bus. Winne the Pooh.

“Maybe,” I said.

We had both grown up with Pooh. The Pooh of my youth, forever on a crusade for honey with a rumbly in his tummy, certainly met my criteria. Then, one night, Kevin emailed me an article from the Times. The new Pooh film was to be a throwback to the animation of an earlier time, appealing to the nostalgia of geriatric parents like me. Apparently, they had tried to give Christopher Robin and the gang a modern makeover a couple years back, but nobody wanted to see Eeyore breakdance. This, it seemed, in a world where the Lion King is about to be re-released in 3D, might be as close as I’m going to come to what I envisioned for her first movie.

“We are so there.” I wrote back to Kevin.

So, in the grip of an unrelenting heat wave, we went to the local multiplex for a late matinee. I didn’t know what to expect, whether there would be throngs of parents and their preschoolers taking refuge from the oppressive humidity or an empty theater, abandoned in favor of the beach and other summertime destinations, so we arrived 17 minutes early. As it turned out, the latter was true. We were one of three families that occupied the stadium during the pre-dinner hour.

I will never arrive at a movie theater 17 minutes early ever again. The first few minutes of advertising were promising. First, a spot from the Foundation for a Better Life promoting encouragement. Okay. I’m fine with that. Then, an advertisement for touring a battleship on the Delaware. Also relatively inoffensive. Next came a promo for a one-time showing of a Shakespearean play at the Globe theater. Now I was getting the feeling that I had been targeted. Somebody had done their homework to study the demographic coming to see this movie. But from there, things went downhill: not one, but three trailers for Happy Feet 2, two relatively scary coming attractions for animated films for the preteen set, a bizarre commercial for Sprite that involved transforming a rap star into a robot. By the third Happy Feet 2 trailer (A penguin rapping, “Don’t call it a come back cause I been here for years,” followed by an troupe of penguin chicks crooning, “we’re bringing fluffy back.”) I sprung from my seat, ready to throttle the teenage projectionist (if there still are projectionists) and force him (or her) to start the show. In thirty-seven minutes they had made up for Sophia’s three and a half years of television deprivation.

“Sit down, Melissa. There’s nothing you can do.” Kevin said. He has an uncanny ability to detect when commercials are over, always popping the TV off mute a split second before the feature presentation comes back on. I dropped back into my chair, my heart still pounding with its fight or flight response to the Happy Feet trailer.

And then the movie started.

I wanted the experience to be perfect: to bring positive memories from my childhood flooding back, to be a magical experience for Sophia, lighting her eyes with joy and her heart with song.

Instead...

Though the overall story was sweet, it was a bit chaotic at points and difficult to follow. The animation was, at times, inspired, and in other moments like Disney on acid. The use of text and plays on words was, perhaps, appealing to adults, but soared over the heads of its intended audience. As for the music, unlike “A Tigger’s a Wonderful Thing,” and the title song, “Winnie the Pooh” from the original film, the songs were forgettable (as evidenced by the fact that I can’t recall a line or a possible title).

Having already sat for an hour, Sophia became restless midway. Again, it was the sight gags, less than the verbal humor that grabbed her…Pooh and piglet’s bumbling attempts to raid a bee’s hive for its honey, Pooh jumping into and swimming around a great jar of honey. She managed to sit with it through the credits. At the end, when I asked her what she thought, she simply said, “good.”

Before we had left to see the film, we tried to prepare Sophie, explaining what a movie was like. I described a stadium-like theater with a giant screen in front upon which they’d project a video.

Sophie thought for a moment, “Movies and plays are different.”

“Yes, a play is live action, with people dressed up as characters. A movie is more like TV. It’s just a picture.”

“Oh,” she sounded a tad disappointed, “I thought there would be people dressed up as characters.” I felt a slight wave of glee at her disappointment. Perhaps the movie would not be as seductive as I feared, a gateway drug into a world of television and characters and commercials. A new frontier of pleading for screen time and intense negotiation. A turning away from her precious books.

And so, later than night, as Kevin and I settled into the couch to reflect, I realized that I wasn’t disappointed with her relative indifference to the film. In fact, I found myself feeling relieved. Immediately after the film, she asked for a story about her and Curious George “Go to the Movies”. And later that night, she went right back to begging for “just one more chapter” from her new Magic Tree House book. She liked the movie, but no more than the books we’ve read her or the stories we’ve composed for her or the plays we’ve attended.

It seems that the allure of image will not supplant her imagination any time soon.