princess skirt

for bee's upcoming birthday i promised to make her a new skirt, a "princess skirt" as she calls it. she is planning a fairy ball for her and her friends, in honor of her birthday, and she just really needed a new outfit. although the party is a fairy ball, bee has one general category of princess-ballerina-fairy which encompasses anything glittery, girly, shiny and silky.

yesterday we went to the fabric store. after much debate about what colors and levels of glitter were "princessy", bee settled on this white silky fabric, with tiny rhinestones in it. i convinced her to get some tulle too, it wasn't a hard sell. as a bonus i suggested some silk flowers from the summer clearance, which was again met with little resistance.

this morning we worked together to make the skirt. it has the silk flowers "swimming" in the bottom of two layers of the silky sparkly, plus a few layers of tulle to make it more "poofy". i used the beloved FOE for the waist.

i wish it was a bit more ruffled, but i still love it. bee loves it too. 

can you tell?

i feel like taking a minute to say how surprising all this girly stuff is to me. from the moment bee was born we made a huge effort to keep everything very gender neutral for her. i wanted her to have the chance to explore the world without any preconceived ideas about what she should or shouldn't play with or like, just because she was a girl. she hardly wore pink. we only chose toys that were very neutral, mostly just art supplies and pretend things. she has always had more trucks than dolls. but somehow, maybe around 2, she just gravitated toward the "girly" side. she still loves digging in the dirt, playing trains for hours and building with blocks. but what she really loves is dancing while dressing up like a ballerina, wearing dresses and skirts every day and shoe shopping. i guess it is more about what she want to wear, the way she wants to look. she still loves to play all sorts of things, but the fashion, it is very specific, specifically girly.

i feel like i sound like what i was rebelling against, classifying things as girly, or not. the point is that despite any sort of neutrality on our part, or ignoring the cultural ideas of gender, bee has managed to pick it up on her own. she knows what our society thinks is for girls, even though we continue to remind her that there is really no such thing. no matter what we say, bee knows what she likes and it is pink, glitter, toe shoes, crowns, make up and fancy dresses. she is who she is, completely on her own. i guess that is what we were hoping for from day one. i just didn't think that this is where she would find herself. now that we are here it doesn't bother me one bit. that fact would surprise the me of 4 years ago.