Princess Party

Princess parties are so not my oldest daughter's "thing." If you have read this blog before, you know that she, in her own words, "likes boy stuff." She wears boxers, talks in a deep boy voice and loves all things superhero. She plays all sports and is unnaturally attached to her camo-print Converse. So, when we got the invitation for a princess dress-up party, I knew I had to prepare her. She was excited about the prospect of a birthday party, but was dead-set against dressing up. But that was the whole deal. It was a pretend, dress-up princess tea party. You were supposed to send your sizes to the hostess and they would have dresses waiting for you when you got there. But Avery didn't want to wear a dress. She said "I'll go to the party, but I don't want to wear a dress." I explained that, when you are invited to someone's birthday party, that you do what they want to do. And that if she invites this little friend to her boy-ish party next May, I'm sure that friend will do what Avery wants to do even though she doesn't like boy stuff at all. Avery stewed over this all week and especially yesterday, the morning of the party. She spent some time in her room before she came in and said "Mom, can I have a Superman party when I am 5?" I said she could. She siad "I"ll invite Rylee, ok?" I said ok. "And Mom, since Rylee doesn't like boy stuff, I won't make her dress up ok? She can just come and I won't get mad if she doesn't do the stuff I like."
She's good, isn't she? I knew then that I was going to just have to play the Mommy card and quit trying to reason with her. "Avery, we can either go to the party with you participating and being nice about it, or you can stay home and I'll just take Reese." That did it. She said she would go, and she would be nice, and she would dress up, but that she wouldn't really like it. Ok, fair enough. That was our deal.

And she kept it. She was nice, she was polite, she went along with everything with a sweet little smile on her face. But I could tell she didn't like it. It was so not her.

Luckily, they had one blue dress. Blue is a boy color, you know, so that actually brightened our spirits a bit. It didn't fit her, but she didn't care. And her blue Spiderman boxers showed through the tulle skirt, but she didn't care. And she found an Ariel crown with blue, purple and green (all boy colors, in her mind), so she was relatively happy. She didn't put on makeup like the other girls and she didn't wear fake hair and jewelry, but she was happy.

I didn't say super happy. Just relatively happy. Happier than if she were say, hanging upside down by her toenails. Actually, she would probably like that. Nevermind. She was going along and being pleasant.

This was our happiest moment besides cake and party favors. We just found out there is a game. A ring toss game. What's that? A sport, you say? Finally, payoff for wearing this stupid dress.

Thank goodness.

The best part of the party came right after the battery in my camera died. I promise I will post pictures if and when any of the other moms send them to me. The style show. Yep, that's right. They had a red carpet sprinkled with flowers and all the "princesses" modeled their outfits. It was a hoot. They were all supposed to walk gracefully, spin around and pose at the end of the carpet and then move to the staging area. All of the girls were so excited. There were squeals of delight when the hostess said the words "fashion show." This was serious business. They strutted, they preened. There was even a high kick by one of the "models." It was hysterical. And then there was Avery. She came out onto the carpet, hands on hips wearing her game face. She was all business. No graceful modeling for her. Nope. She marched. Marched, hands on hips, serious face to the end of the carpet. Did she spin? No. Did she pose? Absolutely not? But was she, with her Spiderman boxers showing through the tulle, the most hilarious princess there? I think so. She is funny. And at the end, when she was back in her black track suit and carrying a balloon and bag of party favors, she said "Mom, if you ever ask me to go to a princess party and dress up like a girl again, I will do it. It was pretty fun. But I still like boy stuff." Fair enough.

And just in case you were worried that I'm running some kind of boy camp here and don't allow my girls to be, well, girly...check this one out. She LOVED this. She wouldn't stop spinning, looking in the mirror and asking me if she was pretty.

"After about 20 minutes of dancing and spinning, she started throwing a fit, trying to rip the dress off and yelling "NO, off, Momma!" and then fell asleep in my lap for an hour. Ah, such is life when you have a 2-year-old. But she is pretty, isn't she?