True Princesses

The other day Hannah was all dressed up in her purple princess outfit and just couldn’t wait to “play princess” with Sabrina. She grabbed a dress from the dress-ups and as she ran upstairs said, “I gonna play sisess wif Beena.” She ran into Sabrina’s room, where she was still enjoying an unusually long nap, all excited and started jumping up and down yelling, “wake up Beena, tine a play sisess!” When Sabrina finished waking up we got her dressed and they posed for these pictures.

The whole princess obsession has reminded me of one of my favorite stories about a feisty princess that isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. It’s The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch and Amazon summarizes it like this:

“Elizabeth, a beautiful princess, lives in a castle and wears fancy clothes. Just when she is about to marry Prince Ronald, a dragon smashes her castle, burns her clothes with his fiery breath, and prince-naps her dear Ronald. Undaunted and presumably unclad, she dons a large paper bag and sets off to find the dragon and her cherished prince. Once she’s tracked down the rascally reptile, she flatters him into performing all sorts of dragonly stunts that eventually exhaust him, allowing her to rescue Prince Ronald. But what does Prince Not-So-Charming say when he sees her? “You smell like ashes, your hair is all tangled and you are wearing a dirty old paper bag. Come back when you are dressed like a real princess.” In any case, let’s just say that Princess Elizabeth and Prince Ronald do not, under any circumstances, live happily ever after.”

My favorite part of the story is where Elizabeth tells Prince Ronald that he is a bum, and then happily runs off into the sunset. I like that the princess is smart and strong and won’t allow herself to settle for a loser of a prince… I know it’s a bit of a stretch using this as my Sunday Thought, but I always enjoy an empowering children’s story!