I Didn’t Have To Buy It!

Yesterday while shopping, my daughter saw an awful princess chair.  It was plastic and gaudy and ugly.  To her it was a dream.  She had to have it.  She pointed to the plastic jewels, the purple trim, the fancy tulle skirt.  I shuddered and said no.

As we checked out of the store with our necessary purchases her little shoulders shook and tears coursed quietly down her cheeks.  I ignored all of this and just shrugged my shoulders at the cashier as if I had no idea why this little girl next to me would be so sad.  I am a perfectly nice mother.

Once home, my daughter did not forget the hideous chair.  She never forgets anything she wants.  Even after putting her down for a much needed nap, which I thought clearly explained the overly dramatic reaction to the chair situation, she woke up asking why she could not have such a beautiful chair.

After explaining to her that she is much too good for such a cheap, plastic monstrosity such as that, and yes, I fully expected her to understand this reasoning, I caved and offered her the next best thing.  I said, “why don’t we make you a princess chair of your own.”  We can make it however you want.  And she smiled.

We went into her room.  I looked around at the five chairs she already has sitting around her little table.  I asked her to choose one of them to be her special decorated Princess chair.  After picking out a plain white wooden chair, I was glad she didn’t choose the pink leather or green folding ones, we went to work.  We glued tulle and fabric roses.  We stuck on jewels.  We hung fairy wings to the back.  She wanted to paint and add more ribbon but we stopped because Mommy was tired and needed to rest, really I just didn’t want to create an atrocity.

As I was putting my hot glue gun away and throwing away the extra bits of tulle and ribbon, I heard her singing and changing in her room.  I wondered what I would find when I returned.  I didn’t have to wait that long.  Here came my little princess looking for me.  “Mommy, mommy, look at me,” there she was, in her pink fairy costume, another set of wings on.  She grabbed my hand and led me back to her room, where she sat down in her new princess chair and smiled wide.  I knew I was a nice mother.