Lights! Camera! Sammy!
I swear Sam's going to be a director when she grows up.
A few weeks ago, she started giving people detailed instructions on what to say and do when she's playing with them. Here's an example:
Sam: "Mommy, pretend you were at the zoo, and you were walking with baby Noah and you saw a king lion on a rock." (*Note: A king lion on a rock is Sam sitting catlike on top of her little table.) "And pretend you say, 'Look, baby Noah, there's a king lion on that rock.' And then pretend that the king lion looked at you and you said, 'Hello, king lion,' and then the king lion said, 'Hello' back to you."
Me (trying to remember all this in my foggy, always-sleep-deprived state): "OK."
Sam: "And then pretend that you went over to the gate and the king lion let you come in to visit. And then ..."
Me: "Wait, wait, wait. I'm going to go IN the lion exhibit? I don't think that's safe."
Sam (with exasperation): "No, Mom, it's safe. Really. You'll just go in with baby Noah. I promise I won't eat you."
I often screw up my lines, which always provokes a sigh or a brief reprimand.
This past Sunday, we went to see Disney's "Princess Wishes on Ice" at the Giant Center in Hershey. Sam was duly dazzled through the first half, although she kept pestering me about when Cinderella was going to show up. Thankfully, the entire second half was Cinderella.
Except they messed with the story. They skipped parts (they had only an hour to tell the whole thing, on ice nonetheless, so I understood), they changed when Cinderella sings certain songs and they didn't have all the animal characters.
This was totally not OK with Sam.
"Mommy, why did she take off her big poofy dress?" she asked me when Cinderella got to the ball.
"Because it would get caught in her skates," I whispered.
"But those other ladies are wearing poofy dresses," she pointed out.
Yeah, good point.
"Why is the pillow he's holding the glass slipper on not purple? It's purple in the movie."
"Why didn't the stepmother lock her in her room in the attic? Where is the attic?"
"Why did the prince come along to their house to put the glass slipper on the girls?"
To Sam, this whole production was a sham. She liked the glitter and showiness of it, but the storylines just did not meet her high expectations.
It's amazing to me that she can notice details like that, but she absolutely cannot find her sneakers when they're sitting all by themselves, right out in the open, next to the front door, in broad daylight, when I've told her exactly where to look for them.
