All That Glitters

“There it is. THERE IT IS!” Natalie shrieked, finger pointing wildly ahead of her.

She was gesturing to her beloved Disney Store. She could probably spend hours in there, if we’d let her. She loves to run her palm down each of the Princess dresses. Sometimes she even breathes, “I would love this so much.”

Most of the time we tell her no dresses because after all, she has a drawer filled with them. However, those dresses are the $20 ones from Wal-Mart. In the Disney Store they’re made a little better….but they come with a $39 price tag.

“Oooo, I’d love this,” Natalie whispered, hugging a Tiana costume to her chest.

Tom and I stared at each other. Normally we remind her that she can ask Santa for a dress. This time Tom whispered, “She’s been good, right? Maybe we could let her have a dress…”

I agreed.

For purely selfish reasons on my part. Before I was a Mom, I always vowed that I’d put my daughter in Princess dresses. And now I could put her in a beautiful one from the Disney Store. They were so…SPARKLY. (Have I mentioned I love sparkly things?) (Except for vampires. Vampires shouldn’t sparkle.)

“You can get a dress,” Tom told Natalie.

She practically fell over from shock.

And then we had to play the waiting game and she decided which one she wanted.

First she went for Rapunzel.

But then she saw the Jasmine outfit.

“That’s not a dress,” I told her. I wanted her to get a DRESS. Not a Jasmine outfit.

“But I love Jasmine,” Natalie informed me, plucking it from the rack.

What? But…but…

“What about this lovely Aurora dress? It’s pink. And sparkly,” I pressed.

Natalie tilted her head to the side as though this were a very important decision. I could see her hand going back to the rack to return the Jasmine costume. Yes. YES!

“I like Aurora…but…” Natalie muttered and hugged Jasmine back to her.

NOOOO…..NOOOO…

“Or…or…there’s Cinderella. Remember Cinderella? She has this gorgeous blue dress that would totally bring out the color of your eyes,” I said. I was pretending to be Tim Gunn. Or one of those people on Project Runway. (“Get the Cinderella dress, Natalie. Make it work.”)

In the end, she agreed on the Cinderella dress and I couldn’t wait to take her picture in it.

Naturally Natalie put it on right when we got home.

And that’s when I realized we had a problem.

The dress had spilled glitter. EVERYWHERE.

I may love sparkly things but sometimes I forgot HOW they got sparkly.

Suddenly there was glitter all over the couches. All over the carpet. The TV screen. I was trying to watch the Real Housewives and couldn’t concentrate because there was a glittery square on Kyle Richard’s boob (I actually thought she was wearing it in real life…I mean, it IS Beverly Hills. Maybe tossing glitter on you is the style these days…)

I have glitter all over me.

Tom had glitter in his hair that I worked to brush off.

Tommy had glitter on his shoes.

“I’m going to get beat up for this!” he pouted, trying desperately to get it all off.

In short, it looks like Tinkerbell exploded all over our house.
I keep vacuuming and the glitter keeps coming back.

Tom has to go to work and if he shows up with glitter all over his uniform, who knows what his boss will think.

(“Uh, did you have an extra fun weekend, Tom?”

“If by fun you mean my daughter’s dress drops glitter everywhere, including places I didn’t even think it would ever appear than yes, Sir…”)

Will this glitter ever go away? Surely the dress must run out of glitter at SOME point…

(And as I typed that, a drop of glitter fell from my head….SIGH…)

(Ironically, the Jasmine costume had no glitter on it…)