I came home to find my five-year-old daughter wearing high-heeled silver sandals that my US-based sister had worn to attend a wedding in Manila and had left behind.It seemed she'd been wearing it the whole day INSIDE the house instead of slippers. Glass slippers, she called them, much like those of Cinderella's.
"Will you give them to me when I grow up, Mommy?" she asked me. "If it survives," I answer her. Not entirely understanding what I'd just said, she frowns.
"Ok, when I'm six then," she says tentatively. Since that's in a few months, I tell her it's impossible. It still wouldn't fit her. This time, the frown stays longer. "But I want to be Cinderella. Please Mommy, please," she pleads.
Since I don't like the sandals and don't envision wearing them anytime soon, I tell her it's hers.
Happy, she tiptoes all over the place - to the dinner table, bedroom, bathroom... I draw the line at the bed. "No one wears slippers or sandals or shoes to bed," I say.
It isn't the first time I'd been confronted with this Cinderella fantasy. She's been bringing her versions of the glass slipper to me every time I've brought her along to a shoe store to get black office shoes for myself. "But it's pretty, Mommy. Can I have them?" she asks.
"It's only for grown-ups," I say. I sigh when she says she wants to grow up fast. I know that when that happens, she'd soon learn that very few Cinderellas survive the test of time and that no matter how many glass slippers they buy, they rarely bring home a Prince Charming.
But in the meantime, she can dream, can't she?
You know what they say - you have to kiss many frogs to find your Prince Charming.
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