Why would you want to be a princess anyway?

Thanksgiving is, in fact, next week and here's the deal, folks. The food banks everywhere are running low, low, low. SO please, as you shop for your Thanksgiving groceries, pick up an extra bag of nonperishables for the hungry in your community. If you're in Edenton, someone in my family will pick it up and deliver it to the Food Pantry for you. Also, the Food Pantry is always happy to take cash donations to help fill their shelves. One recent study said that as many as one in six American children are hungry right now due to the economic conditions of late. So please give generously of your time and blessings.
For all you Twihards out there, only a few more days until the New Moon. I can't wait. And if you're wondering, I'm definitely TEAM JACOB. I am such a fan of any movie that makes kids read books--woo hoo! Also, while we're on the subject of hard times, the Taylor Movie Theatre of Edenton is hanging on by a thread, so GO TO THE MOVIES this week-end or even this week if you possibly can and support this awesome landmark.
Yesterday in carpool, one of the little girls ended up in the back seat with the two older (dare I say stinky, noisy and goofy?) boys. Everytime I looked in the rear view mirror, she sat like a beautiful little statue, eyes wide, just watching the boys.
"Boys," I called to the back seat. "Are you treating XXX like a princess?"
"Of course," they joked and bowed down to her and so on.
My YS in the middle seat piped up, "Why would you want to be a princess anyway? You have to scrub people's floors, eat poison apples, and wait for people to kiss you. Sometimes you even turn into a frog. What's so great about being a princess?"
The girls chimed in immediately,"You get a fairy godmother."
"I've got one of those," Jon said, meaning his godmother (although Tracy, you are fairy-like in every way).
"You get pretty dresses and go to the ball," another girl said.
"What is a ball anyway?" Jon asked.
By now, I'm totally cracking up in the front seat. I watched in the rear view mirror as they looked at each other until one of the older boys said, "It's when you run up and down stairs in fancy clothes, other people watch you, and sometimes you can lose a shoe. And there's a big fancy clock."
So there you have it, folks. Haven't you always wanted to run up and down stairs with people watching you near a big fancy clock?
Now for me, I always thought being a princess would be fabulous because I wanted a theme song. I wanted to spend my life walking into rooms with a full orchestra playing my song. I also thought it was pretty cool the way the birds and butterflies just land on princesses.
But it's an interesting thing because so often we have one picture of a situation while the kids see it totally differently. They think they understand, you think they understand, but your views are miles apart. That explains all those strangely-completed chores ("Sweetie, what ARE you doing?")and hilarious comments. Kids are literalists at this age. They are still concrete operational in their thinking and everything is exactly as they see and hear it, with few nuances. Remember the scene in RAMONA THE BRAVE, when her teacher asked her to sit in the front row for the present? Of course, the teacher meant, sit for right now, but Ramona waited all day for the present.
So keep these things in mind as one more way to appreciate the special way kids look at the world. What a blessing they are.