A Day on the Honky Tonky Way

All morning Annabelle kept singing “honky tonky way” over and over. It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place where she might have heard these words. She pulled out all our party bowls and cups and laid them out on the table. “Mom! I’m having a honky tonky way party. Which bowl would you like?”
“I’ll have that one,” I said arbitrarily pointing to one.
She bit her lip and slowly shook her head.  “No, you can’t have that one. That’s Annika’s.” Annika is Annabelle’s imaginary sister who lives in California but is able to time travel and instantly appear places. We worked out which bowl I could eat from for the party so everyone was satisfied. She kept singing and it finally occurred to me that the words “honky tonky way” are part of the Aba Daba Honeymoon song. “Sing, and swinging, in a honky tonky way.”
Ahh that makes sense. That’s one of her favorite dance songs.
A little later she belted out “Good Morning Baltimore.” I looked at her in disbelief. She smiled at me. “Where did you hear that song?” I asked. “Cynthia sang it to me,” she said. (Cynthia is our fantastic babysitter.) “Baltimore is a city.” She continued to belt. She has an amazing ear for melodies, and we watched part of Hairspray later on to her great delight. She studied the screen and copied all the dance moves. Henry watched her and copied her. Together, they were learning whole choreographies!
Later, we went to play with our little neighbors who were already playing “bear.” Three year old Maggie was the baby bear and had made a bed in kitchen cupboard. She said Annabelle could be a bear too. Maggie went to the river to catch a fish with her giant bear paws and tried to give it to Annabelle who refused it. “I don’t want to eat a fish,” Annabelle said, wrinkling her nose. “I’d rather eat rose petals!” 
“You could be a panda bear and eat bamboo shoots,” I offered. She nodded her assent. It’s the vegetarian in her I suppose.
She ended up fighting with Maggie’s five-year-old brother George. George wanted her to be a policeman or go to jail. Annabelle wanted to be a mommy pushing her stroller and wanted him to be a father gone to work. They reached an impasse and we left hearing George wailing behind us. I held her hand as we walked back to our door. “Annabelle, a good idea would be to find something you and George could both play together.”
“But I didn’t want to be a police,” she said. “I wanted to be a princess mother.”
“You can be that, but you have to find something George would want to be, maybe a firefighter who protects your baby.”
“Or a boy cheerleader!” She said happily.
Yes, or a boy cheerleader. Cheering for his princess mother no doubt. A diva in the making. I really have tried to turn both of us into tomboys, but it hasn’t worked. Truth be told, I love shopping and frappucinos and anything fluffy and pink. As a child, though, I climbed trees and played in the mud and rolled in the sand and built treehouses and picked up snakes and bugs. I want that for Annabelle. Nothing makes me happier than when we come home filthy and muddy. Annabelle, though, has her own ideas. She hates to get her hands dirty and can’t bear to have a spot of anything on her clothes. She loves clothing–she loves to try on anything and everything.
The other night, she pulled every shirt out of my drawer and put it on. She had on probably twenty tank tops (I didn’t even know I had that many shirts!). She tried to walk around the house in them. She loves talking about outfits and what might make her outfits even cuter (black velvet gloves, black shiny mary janes, a pink boa, etc.)
But I’ll keep steering her towards finding the magic in digging her toes in the mud and running barefoot in the grass in the moonlight howling like a wolf, even if she wants to wear a tiara to do it.
Because more than anything else, I want her to be exactly who she is.