Can I Be a Little Girl Again? (Pretty Please.)
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Several weeks ago, a fellow Preschool mom invited Toddler and me to a tea party. Not just any tea party. The Madeline Tea Party at the Carlyle. Though Toddler does not know much about Madeline and I do not know much about tea parties at fancy hotels for little girls, we accepted.
This morning, much to my surprise, Toddler let me dress her in a cute plaid jumper and white turtleneck and black tights. Those of you who know Toddler know she is partial to sweats and jeans and Ugg boots much like her mother. She even agreed to forgo her puffy pink “bat coat” (duh, it helps her fly) and wear her gray wool coat with mirrored buttons. Off to the Carlyle we went. Skipping. Actually skipping. Both of us.
In the lobby, we met up with Toddler’s two little friends and their mothers. The little girls held hands and giggled, and pranced around in their party clothes.
When it was time, we entered Bemelmans Bar where my parents used to go once upon a time to listen to jazz. The historic New York space is blanketed in a lovely mural by Ludwig Bemelmans, the author of the famed Madeline books. We learned a bit of trivia, that Bemelmans and his family stayed in the hotel and to pay for their accommodation, he painted this fabulous mural. There were balloons. There was a piano player.
The six of us congregated around a small table. We moms sipped coffee and the girls slurped apple juice while bouncing in the banquette. All of us sang along to timeless songs. One by one, we trooped our little girls up to the buffet, a magical spread of breakfast food and sweets (tiny cupcakes, bowls of jelly beans and M&Ms and gummy bears). We piled plates high and placed them in front of our girls. And what did sweet Toddler choose from the fancy fare? Fruit Loops. That’s my girl.
With more sugar, came more dancing. The girls stood in the banquettes and jumped up and down. We placed them down on the carpet and they ran around, twirling, hopping like bunnies, practicing unique “yoga moves.” Every so often, they would run back to us and say hello and grab a bite of bacon or a fistful of jelly beans.
By the end of the tea, there were several girls lying down on the carpet. Rolling around. Giggling. Whimpering with exhaustion. Wait, my child was the only one whimpering with exhaustion. And I scooped her up and held her on my lap, kissed her rosy cheek. I asked her if she had fun and she smiled and nodded.
Yes, Mommy, she said, rubbing her eyes.
Good, I said. Me too.
A big thank you to my new friend, mom to a certain adorable Halloween Madeline, for inviting us to the party. It was a fun morning (even if we did not actually sip tea). It was a morning I think Toddler will remember. One that I will remember. It was a morning that made me realize something: I would like to be a little girl again. Even just for a few hours. Even just for one charming tea party. Maybe it sounds silly, but I would like to skip around, holding hands with new friends, oblivious to a bigger world, reveling in simple things, good things, like stories and sweets and songs.
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Do you ever miss being a kid?
What a lovely morning you had!
I know this feeling well. My daughter is 7 and it’s a non-stop whirlwind memory tour of my own childhood, full of bittersweet wishing I was back there and gratitude that I get to do it again. The Nutcracker, dollhouses, hot chocolate, the tooth fairy, ballet shoes, The Little House on the Prairie books, etc … it keeps going.
xo
Did you go to the pretty new Apple store in the neighborhood yet?
I sometimes wish I could be a child again but with the knowledge I have now. I would savor sleepovers and birthday parties and time with my family all together. I wouldn’t let the mean girl at camp get to me the way she did when I was 9, I would play more sports.
I realize that in a way, I am reliving my childhood through my 8 year old but she is so different from me. She is confident where I was insecure, happy where I was melancholy, outgoing where I was reseved. It is her childhood but I get to enjoy it, too!
That sounds like total fun! You are never too young – or too old – for dressing up, dancing, tea parties (and even magic hats, or little French school girl straw hats). I remember loving Madeline as a child, and even my boys, when little, loved Bemelmans’ Madeline books and movies. (But shhhhh…. I’m sure they would deny it now.)
Return to childhood? That’s an interesting question. I think I’d pass, but if I could, I’d spend time with more little ones, telling tales and making sure that their childhoods lasted a good long time. Filled with wonder.
In a heartbeat. To have days filled with tromping through the woods behind the house where I grew up, balloon volleyball games with my brothers, and piles of Nancy Drew mysteries and (yes, Lindsey!) the Little House books – punctuated with snacks and ending with sleepovers in the fort we made out of sleeping bags and an old Lazy Boy recliner.
What I wouldn’t want to do is to go back ten years to my early 20s. Insecure, bumbling, grasping. No thanks.
What an absolutely delicious day you had! And beautifully told, as well. Mine wasn’t the happiest and carefree of childhoods, so no. I don’t miss it so much. What I would love to do now, however, is go back to adolescence with the wisdom I have now. Oh the things I would do differently!
I should pause more often and think about those days of childhood. I should. Maybe I will. Thanks for sharing your day. I will try to look at mine with fresh eyes.
I love this post. It fills me with hope that I am not alone in believing that tea parties based on amazing literary heroines exist still and that they take place in historical settings. And though I don’t know them I love your new friend and her daughter who sounds so much like the toddler version of myself (I was Madeline for 2 Halloweens in a row — followed by 2 years of being Eloise). And I love the fact that she was able to give you a brief taste of how it feels to be a kid again.
What you experienced at that tea is what I experience every single day when I am teaching. Do I ever miss being a kid? No. Because I never lost that sense of whimsical innocence. Sure, when I am not at work I often fall into my ‘other persona’ as a stressed out 30 something New Yorker. But it’s the belief in fantasy and magic and fairy tales that keeps my life going.
I believe that glitter (when mixed in paint, glue, play dough, etc) is actually magic fairy dust that protects us from giants, witches, dragons, and wolves. I believe in sparkly shoes, and wearing tutus to the playground, and dancing to music that no one else can hear. I believe in making up songs about rain and fish and flowers and jellybeans and even tummy aches. I believe in the magic of decorating your arms with paint and wearing stickers on your nose. I believe in Madeline and Eloise and tea parties and white rabbits.
Reading this post made me feel so thankful and filled with joy!
Oh, that is so very sweet! I love the pictures! How beautiful and carefree they look!
My girl is so partial to jeans and tennis shoes. Every day. And I mourn the lack of dresses sometimes, but other times, I just want to eat her up, in all her jeans & t-shirts glory.
YES-I miss being a kid. For sure. The youth is wasted on the youth. I totally agree with that statement now.
I get why you miss this sort of experience, and I certainly would thrill to experience things like Christmas windows at department stores, Broadway shows, the zoo, etc through a child’s eyes…
But when I look back longingly on being a child, it’s one single thing I miss the most: falling asleep like a child. With a shaft of light shining in the partly opened door from the hall, and the sounds of my parents talking to each other downstairs. Nothing ever made me feel safer.