O Captain, My Captain

As usual, I am speechless:

Long ago, I gave up the dreams of Lilly loving princesses and all things girly.

The Force is strong in our family and Lilly is far more Princess Leia than she will ever be Cinderella. (She is probably more Darth Maul than anything, but I'm trying to be optimistic. At least Leia wears that white Calvin Klein dress while she blasts everyone in sight.)

She has refused to dress up at more than one princess birthday party so I finally started politely declining. When she's invited somewhere to dress up in princess garb the other little girls tend to get angry that she won't play along. 

And there is nothing worse than an angry posse of 4 year-old princesses.

Even though Lilly has pulled Jackson's old Captain Hook outfit from the costume bin before, it still cracks me up every single time.

(Which goes to show that it doesn't take much to make me laugh.)

Now it's time to guess who Jackson is:

Did you say Zorro? Of course you did. 

But you are wrong.

He is the "Caped Cowboy." And the Caped Cowboy apparently moonlights as an NBA player. Who duels with Captain Hook. What a Renaissance man.

After a wild day of playing outside, riding bikes, running through the sprinkler, and having a picnic, we had to go to the grocery store for some dinner necessities.

Like food.

Not about to fight The Captain and Caped Cowboy on anything, I let them wear their costumes to Super Target.

There was a time in my short existence as a parent where I would've combed the kids' hair, found clean clothes, and put Lilly's ribbons in her hair to make sure she looked presentable to the outside world.

Oh how times have changed.

And I have totally given up.

By the checkout, so had Lilly:

That is not fake sleep. That is genuine exhaustion. 

In the checkout line, she told me she was ready for a nap and proceeded to just crash.

What?

Continuing to suck her thumb at age four will cause dental mayhem?

Braces?!

You're kidding!!!!!

One more for the road:
I'm pretending she will someday support our family by kicking butt on the Pro Volleyball circuit.

And who knows...she may still be sucking her thumb between sideouts.