Messy Hair, Don’t Care: Feeling Like a Princess

This past year, I met up with my college girlfriends for a very overdue trip. We are all spread out across different cities and states. Pregnancies, newborns, toddlers, and now self-proclaimed big kids abound in our continuously growing group. It’s fun to see some of my dearest friends cheering on dress-up-time performances and singing bedtime songs. As their children grow, I enjoy watching personalities blossom and hobbies and interests expand. I answer lots of questions and respond dutifully to lots of, “Betsy, watch this!” requests. There are tears, time-outs, picked apart plates of food, Disney movies, funny dances, giggles, new stuffed animal acquaintances, avoided bedtimes, and deep-sleep couch crashes.

On this particular trip, I stayed with my friend and her family of five (six if you count the dog). Her daughter is five and is a perfect balance of silly, stubborn, creative, and sweet. We played with animal figurines, created stuffed animal habitats out of to-go food containers, and read stories together before bedtime.

On this same trip, we were attending an event for another one of our friends. We hurriedly got ready (always perpetually running late). I threw on a long dress and the same heeled booties that I had been wearing all weekend (I forgot to pack other shoes — whoops). I had planned on curling my hair, but I realized…