Belle, Belle, Belle

There was a Dinner with Belle at a semi-local play-place last night. I checked with J and he agreed we should go ahead and take the boys and see what we thought. When the boys woke up from their nap, I lucked out - S asked me immediately to read him the special princess book (the one that talks about EVERY Disney princess). I told him I'd love to and that I had a surprise to tell him about about when I got to the special page. We started reading (N came over, laid on me and joined in) and every once in awhile one of the boys would ask you forgot about our surprise and I'd tell them I hadn't got to the special page yet. Finally, we got to the Belle page and so I told them that our surprise was that we were having dinner with Belle. They were both excited. S got this huge grin on his face and started looking a little shy. They both started asking a bunch of questions (if the other people, including Luminere, would be at the dinner too, etc.) and then they got wild. You could tell they were wild because they were excited but I still don't know what to do with them when they get to this stage... it just escalates and I can't seem to calm them down. There is some yelling and then I wind up putting them in separate rooms until it is time to go. (Somewhere in all the wildness, I tried to see if they'd be willing to color their valentine's and S asked who they'd be for. When I told him Grammie, E, etc., he said no but that he did want to color a picture for Belle. He made her a wonderful picture of a green horse. Sadly, I forgot to bring it with us. I told S I'd mail it to Belle but I'm inclined to save it.)


Anyway, on the car ride over there was a lot of chit-chat about Belle, if her dress would be the yellow one, how it would be protected from the rain, were we going to her castle, etc. We arrived at the place and suddenly both boys were super shy. When we went in, Belle was not there yet and the boys immediately found a toy castle with little figurines (including Maleficent and the Maleficent Dragon!) and started playing together. J and I had to laugh because S & N were the only boys - there were about 15 -20 little girls of varying ages, most in their finest princess dresses. The lady at the place was painting their faces and the little girls were walking around exploring the room. While that was going on, S & N were blasting each other (pretending to have their figurines fight and kill each other). It was such a funny contrast.


A side note, not sure if it was the random group of women that showed up or if was representative of the area (a more upscale area from where we live) but the moms were ridiculously shallow (sounding - it was hard not to overhear their conversations which also meant their children could hear them as well which I think they seem to have forgotten or sadly didn't care). They also were so busy talking that they weren't monitoring their children, who were all over the place. It wasn't a huge room.


Anyway, Belle finally arrived and both boys were suddenly even more shy. S couldn't even look directly at Belle. It amazes me that this kicks in at this age. Belle sat on the floor and all the girls gathered around. I sat on the outskirts and the boys finally came and sat with me, enthralled with Belle but still nervous. Belle started doing some games and eventually one of the activities involved a parachute, which N especially loved. They started warming up at this point but still seemed nervous to talk directly to Belle. She then made balloons for each of the kids. S & N were basically the last to get their balloons and they waited so patiently. I was so very proud of them. After that the boys decided they'd like to have some pizza (that was offered up when they first arrived but they weren't interested because of the allure of the castle!). There were only two tiny squares left, a handful of raspberries and strawberries and a some (I'm sure) HFCS infested cookies. Luckily, I had fed the boys a car-picnic on the way over (although it was a pretty small one since I was planning on the boys eating some pizza). After that, everyone (sort of) lined up for pictures with Belle. The boys were last again and once again they waited SOOO patiently. They played for a few more minutes and then we let them know it was time to go home. They ran over and gave Belle a hug and then we headed home.

Of course during the drive home there was a lot of Belle talk - we didn't see which car she drove, wonder if she drove a car or how she got there, did she come from the forest and get lost, she's not the same Belle our friends saw (figured this out from the picture they had) but I think there may be 2 Belles, etc. Got everyone ready for bed and I'm sure you can guess which movie they wanted to watch... yep, Beauty and the Beast.

When I tucked them in for bed and read them their bedtime stories, I made a point of telling each one how proud I was of them for waiting so patiently, for behaving like such big boys, etc. N (correctly) pointed out that not everyone there behaved. Got to agree with him there but just told him the most important thing was that *he* did.