Yes, Stepmother

Rachel and Lizza have been in a big princess stage lately. I checked out the Cinderella dvd from the library a few weeks ago, and Lizza pretty much thinks she is Cinderella. Whenever I ask her to do something for me, she loves to do a big sigh and then say, "yes, stepmother," because her life is just so hard and I give her so many chores to do. Also, a few days after she watched it, she came up to me and asked if Cinderella wears diapers. Upon finding out that she most certainly does not, Lizza declared that she was ready to be done with diapers. Hooray! I was ready to be done with her diapers, too. We would have watched Cinderella a lot earlier if I had known that was all the motivation she needed.

Before Cinderella, the only princess movie Lizza had ever seen was Enchanted. She has a big crush on Edward, so she loves to pretend she is Nancy so she can run off with Edward and live happily ever after. One of her favorite parts in the movie is at the end when Edward finds Nancy sitting alone looking a little depressed, and then he sees the shoe that Giselle left behind, puts it on Nancy, and they run off, etc.

Anyway, this is how I am required to put on Lizza's shoes these days:

E: Mom, let's pretend you're Edward and I'm Fancy Nancy (any person named Nancy = Fancy Nancy to her) and you're going to put on my shoe.

Me: Okay. I start to put on her shoe.

E: No, now you have to say "Why so sad, beautiful lady?"

Me: Why so sad, beautiful lady?

E: makes what she hopes is a sad/beautiful/dramatic face. She doesn't really say anything here, and we go straight back to my lines.

Me (as instructed): May I?

Me (after putting on the shoe): It's a perfect fit!

E: sheepish grin

(repeat for other shoe)
(repeat several times per day with a number of fancy shoes that she brings me just for this purpose)

Here are my little princesses at play:

Lizza pretending she is half princess/half Ginny at the end of Harry Potter #2, waiting for Harry to come resuce her:

Instead of Harry, though, another princess comes along to help. She's not quite sure what to do about the situation:

So she decides this might be a good time to pose for a photo:

Both princesses alive and well:

And ready for princess races across the yard:

The handsome Prince Charming watching from inside: