Happy Birthday Peyton

Today we had a belated birthday celebration for Peyton. We delayed the celebration because Peyton wanted to celebrate it when her friend, Patience, was back in town. Patience has been back for a couple of weeks, but we've had things scheduled for the past couple of weekends, so this was our first opportunity to get to Club Libby Lu. Compared to American Girl, Club Libby Lu seems like a bargain, so I'm not complaining. But it certainly isn't a place that I would choose to hang out. That's a good thing. I suppose if a man my age hung out there someone would call the police.

It was fun watching the girls get their Libby Lu "makeovers". Still, I was experiencing a bit of moral incongruity as I watched the "stylist" apply makeup and nail polish to my five and eight year old daughters (and to my pastor's five year old girl as well). I know that it is natural and normal for little girls to like to play dress-up and act grown-up. It's as normal as it is for boys to make a gun out of anything that fits in their hands and pretend to shoot things. There's a certain precocious innocence about it. Still, in the back of my mind I mused whether this type of activity is what leads to image obsession in later years. Just because something is marketed to little girls doesn't automatically mean that it is age appropriate. I learned that lesson with Bratz dolls (I think we've gotten the last of them out of our house now).

On the way home Peyton put my mind at ease by asking when "she could get all the pins out of her hair." It seems as though the hairpins were making her head itch too much. She washed her hair once we got home and I breathed a sigh of relief. While she can enjoy playing in the make believe world of being grown up, she isn't quite ready to dwell there. And that's just fine with me.