Enchanted

Please picture for me, if you can, a barefoot 3-year-old plopped in the center of a big couch, wearing an Ariel Halloween costume complete with a matted red wig, both a giant bowl of popcorn and an Ariel Squishmallow situated in her lap. That was a mid-afternoon portrait of my best friend’s baby girl, whom I spent all day babysitting today. After a giant struggle to wake up after nap time, the only balm that would soothe her was the promise of a princess movie. She is very much in her Disney Princess Era right now, which has been very fun to experience, but I knew that one particular princess movie that she hadn’t seen yet was Enchanted.  I had a strong suspicion that she would love the movie, but I somehow underestimated just how much. I spent 8 hours with her today doing all manner of activities, and yet she was never more peaceful or more entranced at any point than she was while watching Giselle sing and dance her way through the streets of New York City. It was incredibly sweet to behold.  She was really, really quiet, just transfixed on the TV for the entire animated opening sequence, but as soon as Giselle fell through the well in Andalasia, she went from silently gumming on a cookie to suddenly asking me over and over, “What is happening to her? How is she feeling?” Many more questions followed as things progressed, the most pressing among them, “Where did her tiara go?” She also got really excited when Morgan showed up, like the idea of a fellow little girl being introduced into the mix had her completely locked in.  We unfortunately weren’t able to make it through the entire movie, since we started it toward the end of the day and her parents came home from work before we could finish it, but I’m still counting this. I’ve been in this kid’s life since she was 3 months old and today was the first time we’ve ever watched a movie together, and it was really the first time ever in my adult life that I’ve watched a movie with a little kid. And I don’t know, it was just really special. Definitely one of the most endearing experiences I’ve had. She is not really at the stage where she can give nuanced film reviews, though I’m sure we’ll get there, but we did have the following conversation about the movie that I will record below for posterity:  “How are you feeling, baby?” “I feel happy!” “Do you like the movie?” “Yeah! I like it.”  🥹💖