My Fairy-Tale Life...

I must start with a confession:  Last week we let our 3 year old daughter watch Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.”  I normally don’t encourage such behavior, but it seemed like harmless fun at the time.  Family movie night quickly turned into a week-long obsession with Belle and Beast.  Being the non-conformist mama that I am, I wasn’t content to let her watch it over and over again, so we went to the library at checked out classic fairy tale versions of Beauty and Beast (of which there are many!).  We discussed the differences between the books, we looked at pictures, but mostly we acted out the story.  Storytelling can be a great way to infuse a little fun into your otherwise normal (read: boring) day- here’s what my day looked like, today:
 
7:00 am- My daughter tells me she is the Beast and I am Beauty.  Ok.  If that is any indication of how the day is going to go, at least I’m prepared.

7:30 am- Beast eats all his oatmeal (because Beasts need to be strong to be fierce).

8:00 am- Beauty helps Beast pick out some beautiful courtly clothes for the day.
 
8:30 am- Beauty vacuums while Beast begrudgingly dusts and helps vacuum (because a clean castle is a happy castle).  Singing helps us along.
 
9:30 am- My daughter tells me that I am now the Beast and she is Beauty.  Was it the vacuuming that turned me beastly?
 
10:00 am- Beast convinces Beauty that the castle is being attacked by dragons.  Beauty climbs into her chariot while the horses and Beast whisk her off on a nice 2 ½ mile jog through the forest.  Beast is happier with a little exercise.
 
10:30 am- Beauty runs with the horses then rides her bike (“it’s NOT a horse, Beast, it’s a bicycle!”) around the neighborhood with Beast in hot pursuit. 
 
11:00 am- Beauty finds a baby who needs a home and invites her to stay in the castle while Beast makes lunch and tidies up.
 
1:00 pm- As we settle down for naptime books, my daughter says, “I’m just June now and you‘re just Mommy.”   “Oh Good- I’ve kind of missed being Mommy.  But I had fun, too!”

Not every day will be the perfect pre-school day.  Neither of us were in the mood, today, for counting, letters or anything structured.  Besides, the house looks clean.  We got our exercise.  And we had fun. 

Mission accomplished. 
Maybe tomorrow I’ll get to be a dinosaur. 
I like dinosaur-days.