With my daughter's Rapunzel/Tangled obsession came an instant use for a half a skein of yarn left over from a scarf a friend of mine made for me. The scarf, by the way, is beautiful, as is the leftover yarn.
Not long after we saw Tangled for the first time, Kiddo #1 unraveled the yarn and had me tie it to one of her hairbands. She's been running through the house with it trailing behind her ever since. But today was the first day she actually thought she should take it outside; it's June, so I should count some blessings since we saw the movie in December.
At any rate, she was so excited to take that piece of string (which is at least 3 Husbands long or about 20 feet) tied to her hairband out for our evening family walk tonight that I could hardly tell her no. Husband and I wrapped up our son-- the alternate to the long piece of string is my 6 meters of wrap that happens to be a light yellow colour and therefore a perfect hair stand-in. She loves to pretend she has wrapped brother up in my wrap the way Rapunzel wrapped up Flynn Rider. I wish I'd bought the light yellow on purpose but it, like so many things, was just luck.
So, after dinner, she put away her Cryerton Critters (I don't know why she calls her Calico Critters "Cryerton," but she does) and off we went.
I think I laughed the entire walk.
It was so incredible to watch her running, dancing, singing, laughing, skipping and a few more words ending in 'ing' because she felt like Rapunzel. I brought along the camera and recorded it for posterity; this is something I'll never want to forget.
As we headed down the driveway and took our first left turn, the problem of having 20 feet of "hair" behind you presented itself; Rapunzel's hair got caught on our Crackerin' Thorns (another word Kiddo #1 uses for thorns on rose bushes-- I think she got it from her 90 year-old great-grandmother who calls them "Pickerin' Thorns") and Kiddo #1 almost lost her hairband. We went back, unhooked the hair from the thorns and decided to go wider around the bush.
This walk nearly took out Husband a couple of times; he was also walking our dog who was intrigued by the moving string and let's face it, Husband's feet are not what you might call normal sized. It was kinda like that scene in 101 Dalmatians, which isn't the same movie at all, but you get the picture.
When she came upon one of those giant ant piles that looks like someone spilled used coffee grounds on the pavement, she squatted down and exclaimed, "There must be TEN ants there!" Yes, 10. There are most definitely ten ants there for sure. ... maybe a few more.
Then she stomped her gigantic foot down in the middle of the pile, and Husband turned his back to her so he could laugh hysterically without her knowing. Nice.
I said, "Kiddo #1, why did you do that?" she folded her arms and said, "I'm killing the ants." Fantastic. Clearly I missed the one thing I was supposed to do as a mother to keep her from being a serial killer. Dang it.
"Honey, you shouldn't kill the ants. You only get to kill them when they're in our house because they shouldn't be there. But you should leave them alone when they're in the right spot doing the right thing." Husband was absolutely shaking from silent laughter.
Kiddo #1, arms folded, eyebrows pushed together, giant strand of red/pink/orange/grey hair trailing behind her said, "Momma! They're trying to get into our house!" I said, "Kiddo #1, you need to think about the families of the ants. What if you just hurt a mommy or a daddy or a brother or a sister?" And, Husband, now composed said, "Hey, Kiddo #1, I think there's a bunny over there!"
Distraction: cousin to "Let it Go!" and powerful tool in the Mommy Toolbox.
I tried to continue teaching my child the morality in killing ants, how you shouldn't hurt anything and how the world is made of energy and you get back what you put out there, but Husband got himself tripped up in the hair again. He nearly fell on the dog, who leapt out from under his giant feet squealing, which made Kiddo #1 run back, singing "Don't fall Daddy-o" to the tune of B-I-N-G-O. I started to laugh, grabbed Husband's arm to steady him, took the dog from him while he untangled himself and when everyone was finally free, we continued on our walk. Distraction is a powerful tool; it works on Mommys, too.
And, as a reward to Husband for keeping our walk fun, I offered to get all the debris out of the string when we got home; I think that's probably the real reason Mother Gothel kept Rapunzel in her tower for 18 years-- 70 feet of hair full of grass clippings, dead ants, crackerin' thorns, and sandy dirt would take days to clean! Kiddo #1 will have to make do with her yarn-- only a woman that could sing herself youthful has time like that.
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