From Minnie to Dora

On Friday Nono wore a Minnie Mouse costume to school. She had borrowed it from a friend of hers after a play date the day before and was totally smitten with it. She had talked the owner of the Minnie costume into lending it to her in exchange for a princess dress and pink sequined tiara. An even trade to my mind. She accessorized the red and white polka dotted dress and mouse-ear and bow adorned headband with striped winter mittens because "Minnie needs gloves." She rounded the ensemble out with her pink cowgirl boats.

I liked it that the only comment we received from anyone when I dropped her off at school was, "Thank you for bringing Minnie to school today.", from one of her teachers. The attire tends to be "varied", to say the least, at Nono's school. The only time I have ever noticed them intervene was when one little girl wore only formal, sleeveless gowns, with no coat during the winter for several days in a row. And then it was just an email to the school as a whole about "please dress your children in weather appropriate clothes." And the girl continued to wear her sleeveless formal gowns.

At noon, when I came to get Nono, the other kids were sitting down for lunch and they all shouted a chorus of "Bye, bye Minnie!" and my daughter waved this stiff Disney parade float kind of wave. On the ride home in the stroller some tough-looking women across the street waved to her and yelled "Hi, Minnie Mouse!" she waved accommodatingly and then commented on their folly to me, "They think I'm the real Minnie Mouse." She smiled and shook her head, but was content to humor her fans.

Today, we got home from a road-trip during which she was allowed to watch a lot of Dora the Explorer while we were driving. After we got home I took her out in the stroller with her baby brother and she said, "Hola! Yo soy Dora!" to everyone we passed on the street. She hopped off the sit 'n' stand every few feet to exclaim, "Where do we go?!?!" and then clap her hands and sing the "I'm the Map" song. When we got to the playground she collected a bunch of sticks and handed them to me, assigning me the all-important role of Dora's side-kick monkey "Boots" and telling me to hold onto all these "keys to the buried treasure". She would then walk up to children she had never met before and order them to "Vamanos!" with her. Which, oddly, seemed to work pretty well (probably because every child on the playground has seen Dora the Explorer)

It's a shame she's so shy.