Brave

We took Littletree to see the new Disney movie Brave last week, and I have to say, I’ve finally encountered a Disney princess I can get behind.

Littletree loved the movie; well, I probably enjoyed it just as much. Most definitely the first time I’ve sat through a Disney Princess movie and not been cringing at all the princessy messages they drill into girls.

Basically, Princess Merida is set up, like every other princess, with a bunch of princes competing for her hand in marriage. And then she gets up, grabs her bow and quiver of arrows, and announces that she will be competing for her own hand. Awesome.

And of course she’s a gorgeous redhead full of strength and determination and entirely un-girly.

But most of all, she reminds me so much of how Littletree looked when she was about three years old, before she got dreadlocks. Especially in the opening scene which shows Merida when she was about that age.

Oh how I miss Littletree’s wild, flowing red curls! And it turns out she misses her curly red hair now too. So funny, after she so determinedly convinced her hair to grow straight – the day Littletree decided that she wasn’t going to have curly red ringlets any more, she said she was going to have “princess hair”. Which is apparently light brown and straight with a little wave in it.

I rolled my eyes and thought, ‘Yeah, right. Kid, your hair is ginger and in corkscrew ringlets, and that’s how it is, you can’t change it’, but Littletree sat in front of the mirror for hours, with a hairbrush and a look of fierce determination on her face, brushing and brushing, all the time chanting “straight hair, brown hair, straight hair…”

And lo! Before my very eyes over the next few months, her hair started growing in straight. But now she wants it curly again!

Making Decisions in Seven Easy Steps – Nuffnang Blogger Challenge

Regular readers might have noticed the new ads I have on my blog the past couple of months – they’re hosted by Nuffnang and so far I’m super in love with them; it’s a great blogging community and they have great support.

As it turns out this month they are holding The Nuffnang Christmas Blogger Challenge, which is:

Pick out the best blog post you wrote in 2010, and write a blog post which links to that post and explains why it’s your favourite.

The prize for this is an Apple iPad, which would be SUPER AWESOME to win. My first computer was an Apple: an Apple IIe to be precise. It was possibly the best computer ever made. But now there’s an iPad out there and I would so dearly LOVE to win one, not only because it’s really cool, but because early next year we’ll be going on a round-the-world trip to Argentina for the next World Rainbow Gathering, then to Israel for Littletree’s 8th birthday, then to India, because it’s Litteltree’s big dream to go to India, and if I had an iPad it would be so much easier to keep up with blogging along the way.

But the challenge… to pick out the best blog post from 2010. Whoa. I have 110 blog posts so far this year – it took a couple of hours to read through them all and select the contenders for best post. Another few hours were spent in whittling it down to a short list of 10 posts. I ummed and ahhhed for ages.

Should it be Of Rainbows and Sunsets, which has awesome pictures and encapsulates my life and my blog quite well, or should it be Surprise Flower, which is short and sweet? Should I go for something funny, like When Life Gives you Bananas or what about something that showcases Littetree’s cuteness and intellect, like The Question of Invention? And don’t forget midwifery-related posts like Beautiful Birthing.

Stuck in a conundrum, I decided to go about this in a rational, scientific way. Obviously the solution would be to build a Decide-A-Tron like the computer they made in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to find the golden ticket.

So I got out all my tools and set to work to build the ultimate machine! Unfortunately, just like the computer in the movie, it failed to yield the correct answer.

Perhaps I wasn’t being scientific enough. I tried to concoct a super elixir that would give me infinite wisdom

Still undecided, it seemed I needed to be more methodical, so I went for the Tibetan Deduction Technique demonstrated by Agent Cooper in Twin Peaks

It turns out (as would have been evident to anyone who knows me), I never managed to hit the bottle at all.

I realised that since this is about my favourite post, I would have to delve into how I really feel about it, tuning in to the heart rather than the head, so I had a sitting with a Tarot-reader…

I now know that there is a tall, dark stranger and an Apple iPad in my future, but as to which blog post is best, I was still in the fog. Clearly, I needed to connect with my own inner being. I sat in deep meditation and asked a pendulum…

The final answer still not coming to me, I went to my Guru and Master… Littletree. She just laughed at me, and finally we went with my best blog post for 2010: Faerie Shoes.

I love this post because it’s a little humorous, it has nice pictures, and in one brief snip gives a neat look into my life and what my blog is about. And it’s the post that’s gonna win me the competition, which will be the best Christmas present ever! Best of all, we’ve decided to celebrate Christmas this year, so it will be extra excellent to have a cool present under the tree.

So, everyone, tell me what you think; how do you go about making tough decisions?

My Little Annie

People are often telling me Littletree looks like a dreadlocked Annie, and now I can really see it!

I watched the movie Annie with Littletree the other day, and just at the end of the movies scene, when Annie fell asleep, I looked down to see Littletree had fallen asleep too, in the exact same pose.

It was SO cute! Coincidentally Littletree was wearing the same colour dress as Annie, and they have the same hair shape and colour.

Naturally, I pushed pause and grabbed my camera before I turned off the DVD player and tucked her in to bed.