Friday, August 26, 2011
Page 15
AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)
Little Girls a Reminder of the Past
By J’AMY PACHECO
It’s been quite a while since my baby girl was in her Tinker Bell phase. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it.
She was in fourth or fifth grade when we bought her last pair of light-up Tinker Bell shoes. I remember both of us being delighted that we could still find a pair of pixie shoes that emitted flashes of light every time the soles hit the ground in her size.
Times have changed.
Her shoe of choice last year was a pair of strapped black boots that hit just above the ankle. She had plenty of more girly shoes to choose from, including dainty ballet flats, but it seemed those boots went with us everywhere—school, the store, Grandma’s house. She wore them until they developed worn spots in the toes, and even then, they were converted to costume boots rather than tossed out.
I didn’t give any thought to how much things have changed until my young nieces spent a few days with us last week.The girls are 6 and 8.
If there is a full-moon equivalent to the girly phase, these girls are in it. The first thing they do upon arrival at my house is run up to my office, which contains a Barbie Dream House and an entire bookcase converted to Barbie’s urban residence, to play dolls.
During their most recent visit, I offered to buy them new shoes for school. They were all over the idea, and the shopping trip was like a blast from the past.
The 6-year-old scored first with a pair of silvery ballet flats. The toes had a big ruffle on them, accented by a bunch of fake diamonds. Not to be outdone, the 8-year-old found a pair of flats covered with iridescent glitter.
She quickly discovered she could make pixie dust by rubbing her feet together. I suggested she wait until I’d actually paid for the shoes before sprinkling the world with the fairy stuff. (But I secretly shuffled my feet through the tiny pile, and thought happy thoughts just to see if it worked. Since I’m here and not cavorting in Neverland, I’m thinking it didn’t.)
The shopping trip highlighted the differences between my girly-girl of yesteryear and the teenager who inhabited the family room couch all summer.
She still likes to play dress-up, for example. But where dress-up used to involve a Winnie the Pooh hatbox filled with pink net tutus and tons of fake gold jewelry, it now involves dressing up as characters from the anime world. This summer’s costume of choice was a school girl with—you guessed it—black boots, and a very large scythe. (I’m thinking of putting that picture on our Christmas card.)
Shoes and dress-up weren’t the only differences I noticed. The little girls awakened painfully early every morning, anxious to get started having fun with Tita J’Amy. They’d tiptoe into my bedroom and stand quietly next to my bed until I opened my eyes and invited them in for morning snuggles.
My teenager, on the other hand, had to be dragged out of bed each day around noon—a result of having stayed awake until midnight turned to morning, reluctant to return to the early-to-bed routine of the coming school year.
While my daughter plays online and computer games like The Sims, Pottermore and the dark Epic Mickey, the little ones choose bright, colorful games like Build-a-Bear and Poptropica—a game filled with perky cartoon people who seem to do a lot of rolling and not much else.
My nieces are thrilled with Barbie dolls; the glitterier, the better. My daughter’s taste now leans toward pricey ball-joint dolls that look realistic and have wardrobes that cost more than mine. Instead of putting her dolls in a convertible and rolling them down the driveway like she used to, she now takes them places and poses them for beautiful photographs.
While my daughter floats sedately on a raft in our pool—when we can convince her to join us—the younger girls shriek with delight and perform an endless string of cannonballs.
In spite of their differences, they share an intense love of Disneyland, and an equally intense dislike of math. They’re all interesting, fun individuals with whom I’m lucky to get to share my life.
Their shoes and dolls may change, but I suspect they’ll always be my little girls.
Copyright 2011, Metropolitan News Company