Princessification

We have really tried to stay away from princesses. We haven't bought anything of the sort - really try not to have too much pink, definitely don't call Samara a princess, etc. We got an amazing gift of hand-me-down children books from a family in the Jewish community here in Singapore, and in between the Little Bear, the Berenstain Bears, the Mercer Mayers and all of the other goodies...was Cinderella. ONE princess book out of maybe fifty or more books. Somehow Samara spotted that one, and she wants us to read that one all the time. She loves Cinderella. She loves the prince. She loves that Cinderella "lays keppy" in the prince.

In the last two days I went to Mustafa and H&M with Sam. We looked for baby books at Mustafa, and immediately, she was drawn to the princess books. She said, "mommy, I want this one." She opened them, found the princesses and the princes and she had a hard time putting them down. At H&M she found the princess shirts and pajamas...my daughter has been princessified - completely against my will - and I have nearly no idea how it can happen so strongly. Shall we move to a mountain top?

She has completely memorized Madeline, The Mouse and the Buddha, the Giving Tree and others...so she's not all princess, but still, I'm pretty shocked that it happened so early...and in Asia! I heard this person on NPR more than a year ago, and I was like, "not my daughter. No way." Right...