Little mermaid

Gramma and Grampa made it safely home from Disney on the weekend. (The other Gramma and Grampa are still in Hawaii, where they are no longer on tsunami watch, thank goodness.) The first Gramma and Grampa came back bearing the gift of an Ariel shirt for Mallory. Probably because she told them she needed an Ariel shirt before they left. Nothing like being direct in order to get what you want!

At several of the last few birthday parties the kids have attended, dressing up has been a part of the festivities. They dressed up as superheros in December and then Mallory had her princess party in January. Now she thinks that she is going to dress up as a mermaid for her own birthday, for which we are planning a joint party with the theme "pirates and mermaids" (yup, we're going to go for the joint birthday party for at least one more year). I do not have, nor do I intend to make (at least until October), a mermaid costume for her, so perhaps she is thinking the Ariel shirt is the next best thing.

(I should probably not be so surprised by her jumping to this dressing-up conclusion. After all, the boys at the party will probably wind up with some combination of eye patches/swords/pirate hats or hair kerchiefs. So why shouldn't the girls dress up as mermaids? Well, because I am not about to supply bra tops and fish scales for a bunch of 3 and 4 year olds... that's why. Still, we will try to search out seashell-shaped hair combs or some such thing for the girls, so they aren't left out.)

Mallory has also been talking about having an Ariel cake for quite some time. You may notice that I am trying to steer her away from 'Ariel' in particular and toward 'mermaids' in general, but I am meeting a lot of resistance. Anyway, a few weeks ago she wanted me to show her pictures of Ariel cakes online, and while we were Googling we found images of Ariel cupcake toppers, and she decided she wants Ariel cupcakes instead. Last week I was at the Bulk Barn and I broke down and spent $20 on a half dozen Ariel cupcake toppers, Ariel cupcake papers, and an Ariel candle for the top of Mallory's own cupcake. $20 spent to date, and not even a crumb of cake to show for it yet.