Wednesday – Like a Princess
Mar. 10th, 2010 01:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
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“Use these to draw a picture of yourself,” he told me, handing me a sheet of paper and some tubes of colored glitter-glue dispensers.
“A picture of myself?”
“Yes, wearing a dress.”
I don’t wear skirts or dresses very much, in large part because you have to pay attention to how you sit when you wear them. I am a little over 5 feet tall, and since my feet don’t touch the floor in every chair that I sit in I’m often tempted to wrap my legs around the legs of the chair so they don’t dangle in the air. I’ve found that trousers save me and the person sitting across me a lot of embarrassment, and so they are my garment of choice. Sweet Pea has been looking at my wedding photos, though, and my wedding was one occasion where I did wear a dress. It was long, so it didn’t matter how I sat in it.
My color choices were limited, so I had to make due. I used a green tube of glitter glue to draw a dress and give me dots for eyes, some gold glitter to draw my hair, red glitter for my lips and cheeks, and silver glitter for my arms and face. I started to draw some legs beneath the dress when Sweet Pea told me to stop.
“No! I want your feet under the dress!”
Uh-oh, my bad. I wiped the leg glitter off wth my thumb and I used some more green glitter to put a long ruffle on the dress so it wouldn’t look like I had stumpy legs. I put the toes of my shoes peeking out from beneath the ruffle, and showed him the results.
“There. Is that good?”
“Uh-huh. You look beautiful, Mommy, like a princess.”
This is what he told me when he first saw the wedding pictures, too. There almost were no photos from my wedding. Since I am so phobic about having my photo taken, I refused to pay for a photographer. My step-sister had just gotten a new camera she was very proud of, and she stepped in and took photos as part of her wedding gift to me. I thanked her politely at the time and put the photos in an album, but I’d never felt felt thankful until my 5-year-old son saw the pictures and was so impressed by them. He had heard about a wedding cake that day and was asking what one looked like, having never been to an actual wedding himself. I got out the album to show him the photos of the cake, not of me. When he saw me as he’d never seen me – wearing a long dress, my hair up and my face framed with the satin flowers that adorned my veil – he was amazed.
“You look beautiful, Mommy! You look like a princess!” He has, of course, never seen an actual princess, any more than he’s seen an actual wedding. He’s seen a few in movies on TV and this makes him enough of an expert to know one when he sees one. Every princess in the movies is beautiful, so to be told I look like one is a pretty high compliment.
I am 40. I am a little over 5 feet tall. I have a tendency toward plumpness. I don’t feel much like a princess. But when he tells me I am beautiful like a princess, I don’t only feel beautiful: I feel like a queen.
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.
.
“Use these to draw a picture of yourself,” he told me, handing me a sheet of paper and some tubes of colored glitter-glue dispensers.
“A picture of myself?”
“Yes, wearing a dress.”
I don’t wear skirts or dresses very much, in large part because you have to pay attention to how you sit when you wear them. I am a little over 5 feet tall, and since my feet don’t touch the floor in every chair that I sit in I’m often tempted to wrap my legs around the legs of the chair so they don’t dangle in the air. I’ve found that trousers save me and the person sitting across me a lot of embarrassment, and so they are my garment of choice. Sweet Pea has been looking at my wedding photos, though, and my wedding was one occasion where I did wear a dress. It was long, so it didn’t matter how I sat in it.
My color choices were limited, so I had to make due. I used a green tube of glitter glue to draw a dress and give me dots for eyes, some gold glitter to draw my hair, red glitter for my lips and cheeks, and silver glitter for my arms and face. I started to draw some legs beneath the dress when Sweet Pea told me to stop.
“No! I want your feet under the dress!”
Uh-oh, my bad. I wiped the leg glitter off wth my thumb and I used some more green glitter to put a long ruffle on the dress so it wouldn’t look like I had stumpy legs. I put the toes of my shoes peeking out from beneath the ruffle, and showed him the results.
“There. Is that good?”
“Uh-huh. You look beautiful, Mommy, like a princess.”
This is what he told me when he first saw the wedding pictures, too. There almost were no photos from my wedding. Since I am so phobic about having my photo taken, I refused to pay for a photographer. My step-sister had just gotten a new camera she was very proud of, and she stepped in and took photos as part of her wedding gift to me. I thanked her politely at the time and put the photos in an album, but I’d never felt felt thankful until my 5-year-old son saw the pictures and was so impressed by them. He had heard about a wedding cake that day and was asking what one looked like, having never been to an actual wedding himself. I got out the album to show him the photos of the cake, not of me. When he saw me as he’d never seen me – wearing a long dress, my hair up and my face framed with the satin flowers that adorned my veil – he was amazed.
“You look beautiful, Mommy! You look like a princess!” He has, of course, never seen an actual princess, any more than he’s seen an actual wedding. He’s seen a few in movies on TV and this makes him enough of an expert to know one when he sees one. Every princess in the movies is beautiful, so to be told I look like one is a pretty high compliment.
I am 40. I am a little over 5 feet tall. I have a tendency toward plumpness. I don’t feel much like a princess. But when he tells me I am beautiful like a princess, I don’t only feel beautiful: I feel like a queen.
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no subject
Date: 2010-03-10 07:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-11 03:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-11 03:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-11 04:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-10 09:12 pm (UTC)The first weddding my kids went to was my husband's brother's 3rd wife's.
So, I explained, "They are making promises to stay together forever" etc etc.
They were appropriately in awe of the idea.
And 3 weeks later they divorced.
He is now married to wife number 4. We were not invited to that wedding. I do kind of hate that it was such a poor example of a wedding.
I mean everything, "Why is my cousin in the wedding?"
"Because they are all a family now and your new aunt will help take care of her" etc.
ALLL of that was "undone" and led to many more questions 3 weeks later.
"But I thought you said they promised to be married forever?" Welll...
"But I thought she was going to help take care of Tricia" Well...
It was awkward. I knew it might happen but it was the first sibling wedding since we had kids and my husband really wanted us to all go.
Oh well. Did I mention they also learned people can get divorced?
That is so sweet that he thought you looked pretty:) I want you to post some wedding photos:)
My son could care less about my wedding photos but my six year old daughter likes them.
Of course, she asks, "Why wasn't your daddy there like he was at Aunt Miriam's?" etc
Then I had to tell them that some people elope...
All these lessons!
no subject
Date: 2010-03-11 03:16 am (UTC)I am
happydistressed to say that my scanner is not the sort that works well with photos. It's more like a fax machine type scanner-printer. SoI have an excuse not toit would be difficult to put my chubby little bride self on the Internet.no subject
Date: 2010-03-10 09:52 pm (UTC)I'm sure Jeff thinks you're hot stuff too.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-11 03:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-10 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-11 03:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-11 01:52 pm (UTC)And he is not so little any more.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-11 01:49 am (UTC)I was not as thoughtful as Sweet Pea when I saw my parents' wedding pictures. I still remember asking Mom why she got married in a blue nightgown. (They got married in 1977, and apparently lots of women dressed for special occasions in dresses cut from slightly larger versions of little girls' nighties back then. I didn't know.)
She did explain she wore blue because I was on the way.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-11 03:22 am (UTC)My own wedding dress wasn't that fancy. It was a simple formal gown that just happened to be ivory, and it costs me less than $100 ($98, and on a tax-free weekend). My son is just not used to seeing me dolled up. I'm flattered that he thinks I clean up good!