Little Girls

As a mother, I am now able to enjoy watching my daughter as a "little girl." Gone are the baby days with many naps I could share in and the cute baby sounds. Gone are the toddler days when they did everything you told them to and looked at you in awe half the day. Now I clearly have a little girl. My girl is a girly girl; over the top.

This past weekend we made a trip to the mall. I had to go get cleanser and wanted to do it before Black Friday, as for me, that is no day to be anywhere NEAR a shopping locale. Prior to entering the mall, we had a very clear conversation that there were to be no trips to the jewelers this time. Miss Fabulous has a jewel obsession and though we don't often go to the mall, the ladies who work at the jewelers already recognize her, a few know her name. This kid has tried on jewelry more expensive than my car with the assistance of these ladies; I am astounded each time that they continue to allow this and also to encourage it despite my polite protests. However, for this trip, we have reached an understanding and Miss Fabulous has made a promise to me that we will avoid jewelers.

First stop, Sephora, that's where we had to go for my cleanser. I was a little shocked but my daughter knows her way around that store and made a b-line straight for the glitter eyeliner she adores. That's all good, as I planned to grab some of the pink glitter eyeliner for her for Christmas since she's been talking about it for weeks now. When I allowed her to get some for her birthday, they were out of pink and we had to get purple, bummer. So I apply the sample of pink glitter eyeliner to Miss Fabulous, slip a new bottle to the husband to hold until we check-out, and girly girl takes off - to the sparkly eye shadows. The shimmeriest color is a deep purple, so on goes the sample of sparkly purple eye shadow. Of course, now it's time for Miss Fabulous to get a look at herself in the mirror, and she's in luck, this store is FULL of mirrors. She loves mirrors.

Thankfully she then allows me to take the time to grab my cleanser before starting to fret that she is not wearing lipstick yet. So the husband takes the concealed pink glitter eyeliner and cleanser to the counter to pay while Miss Fabulous and I begin to investigate lipsticks to find the right color, which we all know is going to be PINK. After we find a wonderful Barbie pink color and apply the sample, Miss Fabulous realizes that there are lip glosses with glitter in them and the search begins again. We did find a really wonderful pink glittery gloss to use as a "topcoat" before she realized that we'd still not applied blush. Once we had found a sparkly pink blush color, the husband approached to let us know that he's completed the purchase. Upon his approach, Miss Fabulous yells at him to NOT look at her and instructs that he must turn around immediately. I guess even girls at 5 don't want to let anyone see them without their make-up on. I get that. So sparkly pink blush is applied and blended and we are ready to head out of the store when to our wandering eyes appears a Sephora sales lady. Yeah, we're not making it out of the store.

Miss Fabulous immediately engages in a discussion with sales lady about make-up. I must say the Sephora staff is great with these little girly girls. Miss Fabulous oozes charm to the sales lady and leaves with a ridiculously sincere "I love make-up," as if she's died and gone to heaven. The job at the mall has been accomplished but we decide to walk around to kill a little more time and energy and we are in luck! Santa has arrived at the mall!

So, we hadn't actually intended on taking pics with Santa on this day but there was no line and Miss Fabulous was pretty excited about it. Apparently the new version of visiting with Santa involves a required purchase of a photo. The minimum was a package which included two sheets for $19.99. I should also note that a sheet size is now only a 5x7, no idea where the 8x10's went. Fine, we'll go for 4 of the 3 1/2 x 5 size so we can give copies to the grandparents, and let's face it, the kid is covered in dark make-up and wearing a ridiculously glimmery get-up with no hint of Christmas. My deepest condolences to the children of parents who don't have the $19.99 plus tax for their kids to have a quick visit with Santa, I think this is just sad and ridiculous.

Miss Fabulous adores having her picture taken; the photographer is in for a treat. She immediately begins the modeling session upon her view of the camera. Santa isn't quite sure what to do but with instruction from the photographer he goes with it. Once Miss Fabulous has been convinced by a GROUP of us that the pictures are done and are very good, the visit with Santa begins. She tells Santa about the Polly Pocket Rollercoaster, find the animal game, and the Barbie Wash-up Pup but then more emphatically goes on to tell Santa that what she would super-duper really love is a make-up set and the glittery gold nail polish from Sephora that is the most beautiful thing she's ever seen. Of course, now I'm bickering to myself - I already did the shopping and we just got done in Sephora, there's no way we can go back today and not blow it. I'm going to have to shop at the mall in December even after all that planning. Ugh!!!!! Why could she not have mentioned this just 20 minutes prior? Fine, I'll shop later.

Miss Fabulous is getting restless as the pictures are being purchased, so she and I run into Bath & Body to smell lotions and provide a distraction. She likes the Very Merry Cranberry one so much that she glops a sample onto her hands that is MUCH too large for her, so it ends up on my hands, and my coat, and my shirt, and my shoe before I rush her out of the store hoping that her father has completed the purchase and will be waiting. Uh oh....daddy is nowhere to be found and someone has to go potty. So, we wait, and wander around the little area by Santa (where there is no potty), and we wait, and wait, and wait (and complain, and complain, and complain.) Turns out Daddy hadn't listened and decided to take off to the top level of the mall and look for us there. Grrrr.....we're not even going into this. Finally we hook-up, I start moving some of the lotion from my hands onto any skin Daddy has visible as we walk toward the restrooms.

We have another little thing going on in our house currently. It's called Frequent Urination Syndrome and it sometimes hits kids at 4 or 5 years old. Apparently there is nothing wrong with Miss Fabulous, she just has to go, and go often; part of a growth thing as our pediatrician indicated and it will eventually go away. Not soon enough if you ask me. It's just extremely annoying to find a restroom every 15-20 minutes and I grossly detest public restrooms. I've already escorted the girly girl into the restroom twice since we entered the mall, so it's now Daddy's turn. Miss Fabulous exits with complete and loud banter about how some people are just PIGS! Lol...yup, I've said that a time or two, and she repeated. Daddy's under-his-breath comments then start up about "I see you've been to a few public restrooms with Mommy." Our days for Daddy to assist in restroom trips are numbered; apparently Miss Fabulous also had a few questions for Daddy LOUDLY IN THE RESTROOM as to why he has to "hold it?"

The husband has now entered his "I'm humiliated and tired of the mall" phase. We can't leave though; we have a mission to look for a Christmas dress for the Holiday dance recital. So we begin looking into every children's shop and are having no luck whatsoever - nothing is glittery, sparkly, or flashy enough. However, there is a nice sale at a shop with some wonderful pink glitter clothes and jeans with jewels on them. She does need a few new pairs of pants as she is apparently going through a growth spurt again and the current pants are moving in the way of capri style. To my surprise, she elects to pick several pair of the most sparkly items we can find and would like to try them on "in the dressing room." She's never tried anything on in a dressing room, so I'm surprised but I do oblige to ensure that these flashy clothes will fit.

What happens next in the dressing room nearly blows my mind. Miss Fabulous begins to question the FIT, moveability, and stitching in every item we've brought in. Then she begins a running banter of "this one in a bigger size, this tag says 5, see? I think I prefer a 6 and I also need a lighter pink shirt to try with these jeans, the pink does not match. This one is too dark." She did do it politely and I did go along with it because of her good attitude but I was in shock. She's never had an opinion before. She's always just worn what I picked for her. Where does this come from? It's been over a year since I took her in with me to try anything on and have never expressed such opinions when she's been present. Most exhausting shopping trip I've ever had and another trip to the potty.

Tonight we received notice in the mail that Miss Fabulous has been named Dancer of the Week at her studio. Of course, we were very proud and happy for her! Your attitude and work have to be very good (age appropiately, of course!) to get an award. Miss Fabulous got very excited and then disappeared. No worries, I was making dinner so I focused on that. Upon her return, she had dressed in a princess gown (the most formal she had), heels, bright red lipstick, and a tiara. It was apparently such a special occassion that she decided to dress for dinner. Okaaaaaaay, we went with it.

I need to note that for the past few days, Miss Fabulous has been talking about marriage. (She has never been to a wedding.) She has wanted to know about my age when I got married (I lied without hesitation and immediately forbid her to even think about getting married before age 30) and about our ball. (We met and got married in a very small town - I don't think there's ever been a ball held there, so my husband and I both disolved into hysterics at that question.) Conversation at dinner turned into Miss Fabulous marrying one of our dogs. Once we had reached the understanding that we can't actually marry a dog, Miss Fabulous proposed to her Daddy. We still have to find that Holiday dance recital dress; I might let them have each other.