But I Don’t Wanna Play Princesses!

From the sound of the title you might think I’m going to write about Nia throwing a fit but nope – that is my whine and the guilt of feeling this way is eating me alive.

It’s just , from where I look at it, I play PLENTY of princesses during the day.  If you put a time limit on it, I would say I  sit down and enter princess world for like 10 minutes of every hour.  In fact, I just had to put a ponytail in Ariel’s hair.  I know, it sounds awful – I mean all Nia wants to do is play with me and I love to play with her – I just want to play something other than princesses!

Sometimes I can’t believe this is what I complain about now.  I used to complain about reporters going over their allotted time for a story or about others who didn’t want to do their story.  Now I find myself acting like a 3-year-old when I’m asked to play princess. I’ve actually BEGGED Nia to play something else.  “Please can we play blocks or color or how about we read a book?” I haven’t resorted to the really tempting stuff yet like eating cookies or drawing on walls.  Honestly, I don’t think those will work either.

I guess it’s my own fault.  I’m the one who kept letting her watch all those princess movies and I’m the one who sang all the songs to her over and over again.  I just feel so bad for feeling this way.  I know she’s going through a big change now – she used to have kids to play with everyday – now it’s just mom and her little brother who destroys her toys at playtime.  It’s actually kind of funny, especially when it happens while we’re playing princesses – I pretend Nate is a monster and everyone must run for their lives to get out before the castle is tossed on the floor.  Nia thinks it’s hilarious – we all do – but I can see how that could become very frustrating to a little girl who is serious about her princess playing.

By the way, so far during this blog entry not only have I had to fix Ariel’s hair but I also had to change her clothes and tell Nia how beautiful she looks.  I think it’s so awesome how Nia can play pretend by herself – she’ll sit there and make Ariel and Snow White go shopping or have dinner – she makes Ariel’s mom sit at a little computer and “pay bills” and Ariel’s daddy is usually taking a nap and there’s always a little brother around. When I was little I loved playing pretend with Barbies – now I’m so terrible at it.

I know this time will pass and then I will be sad because she won’t want me to play with her anymore – she might not even want me to talk to her.  I know I should cherish this time and make the most of it – I am trying – I just hope we can break into another playtime phase sooner than later!