little miss temple for a day...

Ruby was not the least bit happy about the dress I picked out for her to wear to church today. She wriggled and squirmed, tossed and writhed, as I tried - but failed - to get it over her head. It wasn't until she finally weakened her aggression, that I became victorious in my objective. Consequently, for the next hour, she lay on the ground (in her sailor dress) screaming and crying.... even shouting things like "I don't like this big dress, I only like tiny dresses", and "this isn't a princess dress, I only want to wear a princess dress". Then, I had the most ingenious idea...I told her that she reminded me of Shirley Temple. Of course, she had no idea who that even was...but something about the name peaked her interest, and she stopped crying. I then had her come and sit on my lap, while together we watched video after video (on you tube) of Shirley Temple. I made sure to point out all of Shirley's different sailor dresses, and that was all it took for her to make a complete switch. Suddenly her once big, ugly, boring dress - became her dress of preference. She even asked me if I would curl her hair like Shirley's (which really surprised me, because she hates getting her hair curled). It was hilarious to watch her morph into this iconic child actress, as she sang and danced her way across our family room floor. John got home from his meetings, and the first thing she said was, "Oh hello there daddy, my name is Shirley Temple!" She told everyone at church that her new name was Shirley Temple, and even after she woke up from her nap, she asked if she could put her "Shirley Temple dress" back on to go to our family dinner. She proudly announced her new identity to everyone, multiple times throughout the evening, and sometimes wouldn't even respond to "Ruby"...but would to "Shirley". We even borrowed The Little Princess (a movie starring Shirley Temple) from aunt Lori, and watched it with Ruby before going bed. She was in absolute heaven. And so, I guess my wonderful idea (to change her attitude about the sailor dress) worked - maybe a little too well. I mean, how was I to know that she'd actually become little miss Temple herself for the day?