Right now I should be doing some homework, so of course I am looking through old photos on my laptop that I haven’t seen in ages, because I haven’t actually used my laptop in a very long time (note to self: back up hard drive!). There’s great pictures of Ben and this one of Maya from last summer:
Maya, I might add, is truly a princess at this point in her life. Yesterday she protested vehemently over the skirt I had picked out for her to wear; today she insisted upon wearing her patent leather shoes with the bow on them. She loves to be “pretty” and for me to do her hair and fuss over her clothes. I know there’s a prevalent thought out there that we shouldn’t tell girls they are pretty or beautiful, but that we should tell them they are smart or clever so that they won’t put the emphasis on their looks. I think the spirit of that is very noble and kind, but I think there is a place for beauty, and I would have to bite my tongue to try to stop telling both my children how beautiful they are. But maybe that’s the real story; beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and if your mother doesn’t think you’re beautiful, well, who does? I want my kids to know that they are the most beautiful thing in my life.
Look at that little boy — that’s Benjamin at 2 years old, hiking with us on Mt. Lemmon. It’s hard to get more beautiful than that, don’t you think?
So I don’t take the blame for Maya being a princess. I blame it completely on the haunting spirit of abuela, Marti’s Mexican grandmother, who I think was wearing heels while watering her garden the morning she died of a massive stroke (she was 87). Maya likes to wear little heels (I don’t have any) and carry a little purse in the crook of her arm (I have a purse/backpack) and wear pretty dresses (’nuff said). And despite the fact my college-aged feminist self would have been horrified at all this, I find her pretty much completely adorable.
She doesn’t totally take after her great-grandmother (and aunt Elisa); this look, for example, she gets from me:
So I let her be girly in peace, and get ready the chains to start locking her up when she’s, oh, I don’t know, twelve? But for now, I enjoy her beauty, and her baby love, and her tiny, tiny patent leather shoes.
Don’t grow up, baby girl. You’re perfect just as you are.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
I don’t know about being as girly-girl as Abuela, but I definitely got the shopping gene. I can do a five mile hike easily if I think of it as window shopping. Probably eight.