Give me a favourite

Rachel and Miriam were playing dress-ups together this afternoon. The ringleader, of course, was Rachel, who had the entire scenario of their game worked out and was deciding what costumes they should wear.

At one point Rachel came up to me and said, "Mom, can you give me a favourite?"

"Give you a favourite?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said, "I just need you to tie this blanket around Meme's shoulders. It's her cap...er...cape. It's her cape."

"Oh, you mean do you a favour? Yes. I can do that."

We've been doing a lot of dressing up lately. After coming home from swimming lessons one day last week, Rachel bound her legs in various scarves and declared that she was Ariel.



When I had lunch on the table I tried calling her, but to no avail, for she was only answering in character.

"Alright, Little Mermaid," I said, "It's time to eat."

"Little Mermaid?!" Rachel scoffed as she hopped down the hallway. "Ariel's at least 18...like Rapunzel!"

"I thought Ariel was 16."

"Oh. Maybe she is little then," Rachel agreed.



Later she told me that she needed "one of those things that mermaids wear on top—you know...mommies always wear them, too."

Today she fashioned one by stringing an annulus-shaped block onto a plastic lei. She put her arms through the lei on either side, centering the block in the middle of her chest.

"There," she said, strutting around the room with her baby doll, "Now I have one of those mommy-things, too, because I'm a mommy now. See my baby?"

I tried explaining that those "mommy-things" go under our clothes but she insisted that they're "so pretty" that they should be worn on the outside, like Ariel does. Luckily, her wooden and plastic brassiere was uncomfortable enough that she soon gave it up.