Princess, It Is

Last night, I was feeling all sentimental, so I decided to have a good old-fashioned heart to heart with Ayva, my two year old. Here's how it went:

ME: Ayva, you are such a good girl. You are intelligent and beautiful, and you listen and follow directions so well. Mommy is always going to make sure you have everything you need so that you can be whatever you want to be when you grow up. You can be a doctor, or a scientist, or a writer, or a lawyer…anything you want!

AYVA: I'm going to be a princess.

Well, of course she is. Now, I wasn't as bummed out by Ayva's response as some other feminist(ish) mamas might have been. To me, my daughter is a princess. Shoot, if I am a queen, what else would she be? Anyway, I took her declaration and made it a teachable moment. Here's how the rest of the conversation went:

ME: A princess? That sounds amazing! If you are a princess, you know that you will have a lot of responsibility. You have to make sure everyone is taken care of, and you have to help people out.

AYVA: I will give them gifts.

Wow. Now if this child isn't ready to be a princess, I don't know who is! You know how you have those conversations with your child, though, and it's in one of those moments when you're completely blown away by their depth and perception, and you try to recreate the moment again, and they remind you that they're 2 and have no idea what you're talking about? I thought this was one of those moments, but she showed me that she really got what I was saying about her role as a princess when sharing a story earlier today about an incident in her class.

It's a long story, but it involves all of the kids in her class crying at the end. So, when I was asking her who was crying, she answered, "All my friends. But I make sure they okay. I am princess."

Boom.

She gets it.

Princess it is.

Brandi Jeter is a Philadelphia mom. This post was adapted from her blog, Mama Knows It All.