“It’s a PRINCESS!” C is so excited she can barely pull the costume out of the wrapping paper. She instantly turns to me, tugging at her overalls. “Mammy! Take it off!”
I help her out of her clothes and pull out the blue princess costume. C can barely contain herself. She daintily sets first one foot and then the other into the puffy blue gown. We tug it up over her baby torso and wrestle her arms into the sheer sleeves.
“Oh! C! You’re so pretty! You look just like a princess! Go look in the mirror.”
She scampers off and comes back a minute later.
“My wanna dance! Please turn on the music mammy.”
“You want me to turn on the Sesame Street where Zoe and Elmo dance ballet?”
“YES!”
“No problem princess.”

I’m not sure when it happened, but it seems that over night my rambunctious daredevil toddler has turned into a girly girl. Give her three clothing options and she’ll inevitably pick the pink option, and if you didn’t give her a pink option then she’ll go into her room and get one out of her dresser all by herself. The only way to counteract the curse of the pink clothes is to tell her that my options will make her look like a princess.

We’ve done nothing to push her in this direction. At daycare she spends more time playing with boys than girls. At home, aside from the harem of dolls, the toys tend to be gender neutral. Her clothes are more functional than pretty. But none of this matters. From her cute curls to her battered shoes, she’s a girly girl through and through. I’d even go so far as to say: she’s our little princess.