The Princess and the Pea

My daughter Mia is the original princess. I mean that in the literal sense, in that she was the first daughter born, and also that she is the epitome of princessness for me. She is a beautiful girl, with big green eyes fringed with abundant eyelashes, full pouty lips, and luxuriant honey-colored curls.

Whereas my son was all boy, Mia was always all girly, with frills, and pink and princess stuff galore. Every time I was pregnant, my son Danny hoped for a brother, but alas! was always disappointed. Nevertheless, he had a rich fantasy life, so he decided that he would make his sisters into the brothers he never had by dressing them up in his clothes. He would dress them in his boxers, shorts, undershirts and t-shirts, with baseball hats on their heads and give them boy names like Tom or Charley. Mia always refused to participate in these games. Even in make-believe, she would never even consider playing a boy.

Beginning when she a toddler, and continuing to this day, Mia has always been sensitive, both physically and emotionally. On a physical level, she is bothered by the way things feel on her skin. She doesn’t like the feel of lace, even stretch lace, or anything with an appliqué, or fabric paint. She is bothered by the seams sewn inside socks and other clothing, which means that she refuses to wear anything with panels or embellishment. She only likes soft, jersey type material, and skirts, shorts and pants have to hit her in a certain spot for her to be able to tolerate them.

All of which makes shopping with her akin to getting a root canal. One August, her Grammy took her shopping for school clothes. Although she goes to public school, they have a dress code and have to wear logo shirts with a khaki or navy bottom. Grammy took her to the mall, and for some reason, Mia refused to even try anything on. Not to be deterred, Grammy bought her about half a dozen khaki and navy skirts, shorts and pants in her size and figured she would try them on at home. Mia rejected all of them. I took them back and exchanged them for another full round of bottoms. Most of those went back as well. I think we ended up keeping two items, one of which she has steadfastly refused to ever wear for some undisclosed reason.

Mia is also very sensitive on an emotional level. She gets her feelings hurt easily, especially by her brother, whom she adores. On the plus side, it makes her extremely empathetic. If someone is hurt or sick, Mia will be the one getting him tea or rubbing her head. It makes her both a great babysitter and a terrible one. Great when the little one is behaving and not so great when there is a problem, because she is too softhearted to enforce any kind of discipline.

When she was little, I worried that she was too soft and too vulnerable to future hurts, so I made sure that I read books and made up stories (I was constantly making up original stories for my children) in which the princess characters were courageous and clever. Some of them were warriors and once in a while ended up saving the prince or even the entire kingdom. Even when I read traditional stories like Cinderella or Snow White, I would add little asides that went something like this, “You know, this is just a fairy tale. In real life, girls and ladies don’t just sit around waiting to be rescued by a guy.”

Now, at nine, she has toughened up somewhat. I was actually surprised last year when I enrolled her in soccer and she was the best, most competitive player on the team. She gets upset less often when Danny is nasty to her. But no matter how strong and independent my Mia grows, she will always be my number one princess.