Same
goes with clothes.
My
daughter has tonnes of beautiful stuff. I literally mean boxes of it. I’m not
showing off. I am, by my own admission, a middle-of-the-night-whilst-breastfeeding-eBay-obsessive,
so she was always going to do well out of that.
But,
when given the choice of either wearing a pair of gorgeous BNWT Boden dungarees
or a Disney-style princess outfit in luminous pink with gothic black netting, that
was bought from a jumble sale for 20p, is at least one size too small and looks
like a dog has had a good go at it, there is, of course, no competition.
This has
been her outfit of choice for the last few weeks.
And that’s
how we rocked up to a campsite over the bank holiday weekend. She squeezed it
over her normal clothes on an absolute scorcher of a day, so was completely roasting.
Her
other favourite thing at the moment is finding ‘special treats’ wherever we go.
These ‘treats’
can vary from leaves to snails to discarded receipts.
So
imagine her absolute joy when, as we were pitching the tent, she found a bottle
of acid blue, glow-in-the-dark nail varnish.
She’d
already buddied up with a bunch of older girls on the site, who had been over
several times to introduce her to a variety of dogs, so we assumed one of them
must have dropped it.
Having
been briefed that she had to return it to its owner, our daughter marched off around
the campsite clutching the nail varnish, asking all the girls if it belonged to
them. Which it didn’t.
So she
claimed it as her own and began, without any encouragement or prior experience,
painting her toe nails with the concentration of a surgeon.
I have
spent the first two and a half years of my daughter’s short life making a right
fuss that children should be whatever they want, can wear whatever colours they
like, can play with pretend kitchens or power tools, that it’s their choice.
But for
now it turns out my daughter couldn’t be happier than when she’s sitting off in
a field dressed as a princess, painting her toe nails with nicked nail varnish.
I think
the real punch in the tits came when a fellow camper walked past and said to
me: “It’s so lovely when you can dress them up like that. Give it a year or two
and she won’t let you.”
Fabulous. Like mother like daughter, except mum preferred a fairy outfit.
ReplyDeleteHa ha - you're so right! And she can put nail varnish on better than me! X
DeleteI love your blog, Anna! I have a girl almost 3 yo and a baby boy 3.5 months so I find things you write about Very relevant. I have read every single post and want to thank you for great writing! Your blog made my night- time breastfeeding sessions so much more fun :)
ReplyDeleteThank you so much. That's a totally ace thing to hear. Hope it's all going well for you xx
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