Wednesday, Miss International Day #3 PRINCESS BALL!

We rehearsed all morning and afternoon of day #3, but that evening there would be no work, all play! We were invited to attend a very special princess ball at the Skokie Library! We each were assigned a little girl and through the process of completing very important tasks we would help them to become a princess. We decorated jewelry boxes with sparkling jewels, answered princess trivia, and went on a hunt to locate a pea; those who were able to locate a tiny pea in the big auditorium were SURELY a princess, as told in the fairytale “The Princess and the Pea”.

The story:

The story tells of a prince who wants to marry a princess but is having difficulty finding a suitable wife. The prince finds that something is always wrong with those he meets, and he cannot be certain they are real princesses. One stormy night a young woman drenched with rain seeks shelter in the prince's castle, and she claims to be a princess, so the prince's mother decides to test their unexpected guest by placing a pea in the bed she is offered for the night, covered by 20 mattresses and 20 featherbeds. In the morning the guest tells her hosts that she endured a sleepless night, kept awake by something hard in the bed; which she is certain has bruised her. The prince rejoices; only a real princess would have the sensitivity to feel a pea through such a quantity of bedding.

Why this is relevant? The story was told to all of the little girls in the room and then we were released to see if our partners were real-life princesses; surely if they were REAL princesses they too could locate a tiny pea in this large auditorium. As the host yelled, “ready, set, go find your peas, princesses!” my adorable partner who was 4 years old and was wearing a princess dress tugged on my arm with a very sad face and said, “Wait, I can’t do this…. I won’t be able to find the pea.” I told her, “Of course you can! What makes you think that you won’t be able to?” and she replied, “Because, I am not a princess.” My mind was set; I made it my mission to prove to this little beauty that she was in-fact a princess! I grabbed her hand and promised her that I would prove that she was a princess! Not only did we locate a pea, we were one of the VERY FIRST to locate one! The look on her face was priceless when I picked her up, swung her around, and cheerfully squealed, “I knew that you that you were a real life princess!” She spent the rest of the evening sashaying around as we completed the rest of our tasks and prior to leaving she hugged me and then thanked me for helping her to find her princess pea and said that before this day she had no idea that she was a real-life princess!

Sometimes it only takes ONE person believing in you to give you the confidence needed to believe in yourself. Mentors of the Big Brothers Big Sisters program provide children facing adversity with the boost that they need to believe in themselves….will you be that life-changing person for a child in your area? For more information please visit: www.BBBSA.org.