I assume she's been talking about Frozen with other children since she started nursery. Because in the past fortnight she's declared her name is Anna and I am Elsa.
It was fun at first. We had pretend snowball fights and made pretend snowmen and bunnies and mice and elephants, and even a pretend ice castle in the living room. She'd declare Now you're Queen Elsa and Now you're little Princess Elsa.
I found her singing Let it go very loudly in public toilets a bit disquieting.
Then on day two she decided her mum was Other Elsa.
On day three I was demoted full time to Princess Elsa and her mum was Queen Elsa. It felt like my old job all over again. (I'm sorry, you're not Scandinavian enough to do your job)
Now she's still demanding we call her Anna. Whenever we call her by her real name, she says Say Anna. Every. Single. Time.
She even introduces herself to people as Anna. I suspect she likes it better than her actual name since small children have an easier time pronouncing it.
She's seen the movie, in full, once, plus that time on the plane when she saw half of it. So, good for her with the good memory.
She told us this will last for several weeks. It can't be over fast enough for my tastes. I'm a bit tired of the whole princess thing, but I am more sick of being introduced has her sister.
It's kind of weird how songs take on a completely different meaning once you have children. You'll just never hear them the same again, and after a while you'll start to question if you ever actually knew what the song was all about. Is it a love song, or just swooning over an infant? Is it about dancing, sex or just playing in a bouncy castle? At this point I can't hear the lyric baby in a song without picturing it being sung to a toddler.
I pick up my daughter at nursery pretty much the same way each time. It's just after lunch. I come in the room and see her playing. Eventually she looks up at me and her eyes just shine and she smiles. And to this day the lyrics the sparkle in your eyes keeps me alive have taken on a completely different meaning. It’s shocking how much peace and solace your child can give you. Turns out that kiss-it-all-better works both ways.
Anyway, not to belabour the point, here's a smattering of lyrics and I can no longer hear without thinking about my child:
You think you're tired now, but wait until three
All I ever wanted, all I ever needed Is here in my arms
Destroy everything you touch today, destroy me this way
Oh you've got green eyes, oh you've got blue eyes, oh you've got grey eyes. And I've never met anyone quite like you before.
Grabbing hands grab all they can all for themselves after all
And that's just off the top of my head. I could probably list dozens of these here.
Within moments of turning 3, her personality took a shift to the difficult. It's one of the reasons I've not posted here for ages. That and work sucking up every waking minute not spent with my daughter.
Anyway, to the topic at hand – she's not become malicious or evil or anything, it's just a number of things are now harder. Obstinate. That sums up much of it. She has enough mastery of language to explain what she wants but not enough to be able to be reasoned with.
The troublesome threes have begun.
Other inconveniences are her wilful regressions. She can go to the loo by herself. But, when we're around she doesn't want to. Same with dinner. She can focus and eat a whole meal by herself, but she won't with us. It's like she's learned a skill, mastered it, and found it to be easier to not do it if someone else will do it for you. The only way I can think of solving this is to buy a new house with a different toilet and dining room.
And then she started nursery.
We're doing 3 days a week, 8am-1pm. Getting her up and out for 8am was a scary shift. For all of us. I've managed to get myself to bed by 3am most days since we started this, so that's a plus. But her sleep still hasn't got on track. She's mostly dropped her nap, and often misses her new earlier bed time, which means sleep deprivation might be cause of some of her 3-related personality shifts (she can join the club of overtired mood swings – I founded this local chapter).
Nursery has done a lot of good for her. She's hanging out with other children her age on a regular basis, and loves it. When she leaves nursery at the end of the day, it sometimes turns into hugs-for-everyone time.
It's like she's just discovered that there's this thing called "other people" and you can do things with them. On friday, on the way home from the park she just walked up to a couple at a bus stop, introduced herself and told them she was three. Every time we've been to a park for the past month she picked at least one smaller child, befriended them, and took them all over the playground Come, come, come, let's play!.
She also eats far better at nursery. It's the combination of someone besides us feeding her, her getting stuff we never cook at home, and them having a dedicated member of staff whose job it is to make a variety of foods for a shedload of picky babies and toddlers.
On the other hand, the grammar of some of the staff at nursery is horrendous. While I can find it hard to complain about having east-end accents in a Hackney day care, I'd at least expect better conjugation of "to be". The only think that consoles me is that the girl used "yourself" correctly in conversation the other day, so all must not be lost.
