Thursday, March 22, 2007

Fairies and Firetrucks

Kate is very much into fairies, princesses, and fairy princesses. Most moments you can find her involved in imaginative play as one of those. As often as you see Kate playing fairy princess, you find Liam pushing around his toy firetruck, or a car or truck of any kind. He just loves pushing them around the floor. It is so cute. I get a great deal of pleasure out of watching their little minds put toys and props and imagination into action. Today Kate told me this:

"Mom, I have a lot of homework, but when I am done, I am going to set up for the fairy party. You have two choices. You can come to it, or you can not come. What do you choose?"

Now I love dissecting this on so many levels.
One. I don't know where she got the homework thing. She obviously does not have homework at preschool. But she kept talking about homework all day as if it was a great "big girl" privilege.
Two. Set up for the party. My little "martha" too cute.
Three. The comment about choices. We are always giving her choices. They are set up to make her feel empowered and in control but really are not much of a choice. For instance, "kate you have two choices. You can clean up your mess like we asked or you can go to time out - which will it be". So the choice thing is having an impact as she gave me choices today.

There really is no point to this - I just find her three year old mind fascinating.

She is also becoming more assertive and tricky! Tonight she was playing fairy - complete with fairy wings and fairy crown. She was doing "fairy dances and twirls" all over the house and even the simple task of picking up a toy just HAD to be done with a great fairy flourish. I told Kate to set the table because it was time for dinner. She informed me in a tone that suggested that I was completely inept, "MOOOOM, Fairies. Don't. Eat. Dinner." (insert eye roll from the 3-year-old". I just casually disagreed "No, I am pretty sure that they do! They need energy through food otherwise they run out of fairy dust! In fact, I know for a fact that Elena (her favorite fairy) absolutely loves to eat buttercups and dewdrop tea". Kate was a bit put off, I could tell. She was frustrated that I was besting her in fairy knowledge.

So she inserted a classic kid-ism. "Nuh-uuuhh", she protested.

I told her, "Kate, I promise you that fairies do, indeed, eat dinner."

Kate, standing her ground in her purple and pink wings, fairie crown askew, arms crossed and hip jutting out a-la the famous fairy Tinkerbell, says to me (and I forgive her grammer considering her age), "WELL THIS FAIRY DON'T"!!!!!

Needless to say "this fairy" ate a full dinner. And liked it.

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