When I was a little girl, I thought virgin meant something like "girl in the Bible" because I had only heard of the Virgin Mary, and there was a certain costume that always accompanied Virgin Mary. So one day my mom gets my baby sister out of the bathtub, all wrapped in a towel, and I say, "Awww...Mommy, she looks just like a little virgin." After the gasp followed by an awkward silence followed by a barrage of questions, my mom explained to me that I was a teeny bit mistaken about the meaning of that word.
Big Sissy won some hair clips at Nana and Papa's church on Sunday (while Hubby and I were having a little child-free retreat in a nearby town). She spent the next few days creating some nice costumes using baby blankets and clips. She called them nightgowns, but since they resembled a nativity scene--especially with Brown Lamby all wrapped in swaddling clothes--I suggested they looked like Bible character costumes. Then I proceed to point out that they could be Bible sisters like Leah and Rachel. Then they could both marry Jacob (Little Buddy). He always wants to play with them, so bam. Problem solved.
Instead of the excited, "Great idea, Mommy!" response that I expected, I got an awkward stare reminiscent of the day I misused the term "virgin."
"We can't be Rachel and Leah, Mommy."
"Why not?"
"Ummmm...because we're both kind of beautiful. Who would be Rachel and who would be Leah?"
Oooooo...true. I didn't know they were actually listening to all those Bible stories.
Genesis 29:16-18: Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel had a lovely figure and was beautiful. Jacob was in love with Rachel and said, "I'll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel."So they are CLEARLY not Leah and Rachel. Of course. Maybe Mary and Martha?
This time has been different from all previous times, though. The last time he got lost for about 12 days, she literally grieved. She cried every night, she thought she "heard" him a few times. She even had dreams about mean animals trying to get him. But this time she has been so proud of herself because she hasn't cried at all. In fact, she's noticed that she hasn't sucked her fingers at all since he's been gone. This is something that she has wanted since her 4-year-old checkup, when Dr. Dave told her she's too big to suck her fingers now. 
So now she's 4 1/2 going on 20. I think she's going to be OK without him this time. I'm a little sad, but I'm working on a photo book of Little Sissy and Brown Lamby so she can always remember her sweet relationship with him. And this time when he appears he can get stored away for posterity. I hope. 
She was born into a family of means, thrown into an unfortunate and even abusive environment, and yet she remained sweet and gentle with a servant's heart. Everything in me wants her to be a princess and be rescued by the hero on the white horse. Then there's Belle. 
She is from a dysfunctional, single-parent home, but she loves to read and learn, doesn't care what people think of her, AND she offers to trade places so her sick father can be freed from the Beast and his dungeon. That girl deserves to be a princess and have her love transformed into a handsome prince. Next may I present Ariel, daughter of King Triton.
She apparently is also from a single-parent home (at least there's no mention of a mother), but instead of honoring her father she is constantly disobeying him to go have her adventures, missing her own concerts, and she sells her soul and that of her father to the evil sea witch Ursula. All she has to win over Prince Eric is her looks. She's sold her soul and her talents to get the boy. Ugh. That is not a model that I want my children to look up to.
