Remember When ↠ l.p.

Princesses

"Mommy can you tie this for me?" Cailyn asks as she holds out the two loose pieces of fabric on her dress. We're having a princess day, we have gotten all dressing up and are going to have a movie marathon, meaning all our favorites, of course. I managed to find some princess costumes and surprised the girls with them this morning, they were bursting with excitement. I got Tessie a Belle dress and Cailyn a Rapunzel dress. For myself, well I dug around in my closet and found a black dress, I'm calling myself Maleficent for apathetic reasons. Despite being twenty-six I still enjoy playing dress up and a good Disney movie, it brings out my nostalgia and anyone who says twirling around in a dress isn't fun is obviously lying to themselves. 

"Sure mi hija, gimme one second." I adjust the tiara on my head and then turn to spin her around and tie the back of her dress for her. "You look gorgeous!" I pretend to swoon backwards onto my bed as she dances around the room for me. "Where is Tessie? I bet she looks beautiful too." Tessie has been talking about today and getting amped on anticipation ever since we all agreed on the idea. I want to make this a great day for them, with all the changes recently they definitely deserve it. 

"She's still gettin dressed, I beat her." Cailyn says a bit proudly. I pat her head and fish out the tiara I found for her. I motion for her to curtsy and then I place the tiara on her bowed head. She rises and tries her best to look cool and proper, but ends of giggling when I start making faces at her.

"I pronounce you Princess Cailyn of the-" I pause to lean down and whisper out of the side of my mouth "what do you want to be princess of?" She considers it for a moment.

"Princess Cailyn of the Jaguars please." She folds her hands and walks out towards the hall. "You have to announce me out here, where I'm going into the living room so it's like our ballroom."

"Oh alright, that's a good idea. Let's wait for Tessie though, if she's almost ready." I poke my head into Cailyn's room which has slowly been becoming the girls' room. We had planned for Tessie to eventually have her own room here, whether it be the office room or the guest bedroom, but it was always something that Sophia and I had planned to do together. It feels wrong to do it without her. So we've slowly added more and more of Tessie's clothes to Cailyn's room and rearranged the office room into a playroom of sorts, to make room for the extra bed we're planning to put in Cailyn's room. For now Tessie has been sleeping on a pallet or in Cailyn's bed with her. Tessie is standing in the middle of the room, humming the opening song from Beauty and the Beast and twirling around with a book, making me grin and reach for my phone to record her. After taking a quick video I break into the room singing as much of Belle's part about the book that I can remember. "Ohhhhhh....isn't this amazing? It's my favorite part because....you'll see. Here's where she meets Prince Charming. But she won't discover that it's him, till chapter three!" Tessie gets pulled into my dancing and she breaks out laughing, the happiest I've seen her since before Sophia's death. "I'm glad you like your dress, would you like a tiara to match it perhaps?" she nods and I place her crown on her head as if I were crowning her at a coronation. Lots of sweeping of the arms and then leading her out into the hall where Cailyn has been watching us. 

I step out into the living room and make a bugle noise and then stop midway through. "Er, Tessie, where are you from or what are you princess of? Cailyn is princess of the Jaguars." I watch as she considers things for a moment, pulling at her skirt and twirling a lock of hair.

"You could be of the bookshelves, it'd be really like Belle. Or you could pick an animal too! You could be Princess Tessie of the sharks! Or beavers!" Cailyn offers her own suggestions, earning a horrified glare from Tessie and a laugh from me. 

"Let Tessie pick her own name, I'm sure she'll come up with something great." I nod to Tessie who has let go of her dress and raises her hand slowly to cut in.

"I wanna be Princess Theresa of the Wind please Izzy." she says evenly, I can see a bit of pride in her eyes as I nod approvingly and Cailyn smiles and pats her arm.

"I know present, Princess Cailyn of the Jaguars and Princess Theresa of the Wind!" I announce in a pompous voice, sweeping an arm to usher the girls in. They curtsy before the line of stuffed-toyed animals we've set up and then start to fuss over which movie to watch first.

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"Can we play the princess game?" Cailyn asks innocently, waiting until I've just sat down next to them on the piles of couch cushions, stuffed-toy animals and blankets. I raise an eyebrow at her and she frowns, pouting her lip out and wiggling with energy. We've only made it halfway through our first movie and she's already prepared to move onto the next activity. Children have so much energy, it makes me tired just watching them. I moan and lay back on the cushions, curling up next to Tessie and glaring at Cailyn.

"But we're watching the movie. Tessie and I wanna finish it don't we, bebé?" I noticed that Tessie likes it when I call her some sort of endearment, especially when it's in spanish. So I've been trying to get into a habit of doing so. I'm pretty sure that I'm the only woman in her life at the moment, now that she's back home from England. I want to make things as special as I can for her, I know that even if it isn't necessarily jealousy that she must be sad watching us. She must be sad that while her mother is dead, Cailyn still has me. I try to push the negativity from my mind and focus on the two treasures -ahem- princesses that I have in front of me. Whether they have a king for a father or not, they're both worth more than any title or birthright.