I missed the boat on the original Disney’s Frozen frenzy. I am a teacher, so I have had just about all of my female students dress up as Elsa or Anna for Halloween, although I did not know the character’s names at the time. A friend of mine gave me the movie soon after my daughter was born in her quest to immerse me in all things Disney. I played it for my daughter a few times and she would acknowledge it during a song or two with a mildly disinterested glance and then resume playing with her toys.
Then it was like Elsa entranced her with her Frozen powers. Maybe it was not Elsa, maybe it was actually my same Disney-loving friend, Regina, who showed my daughter how to press a button on an Elsa ornament hanging on her decked out Disney tree over the holidays. She had her at “button”. It all seemed to snowball from there.
I was trying to find a recordable toy microphone for my daughter for Christmas, as she loves music and is always singing to herself. The only one I could find, lo and behold, was a Disney Frozen microphone that plays the song, “Let It Go” when you press a button. My daughter was hooked and opened her Christmas gifts one handed while holding her microphone in the other, singing, “Goooooo….goooooo….goooooo!”
Although I work from home, I really try not to use television as a crutch to entertain my daughter while I am working. I even banned all television for about the first year of her life until she discovered Sesame Street. However, a few days after Christmas, my husband and I took a trip and knowing that we could not pack all of her interactive and educational toys and books with us, I brought my laptop and the movie Frozen for my daughter to watch during our down time in the hotel room. That snowball of Frozen frenzy began to gain some real momentum.
After we returned from our trip, I really thought that my daughter would resume playing with all of her Christmas presents and forget about Elsa and Anna. I had forgotten the number one fact about raising a toddler. There is no such thing as too much repetition. My daughter woke up in the morning and says quite seriously, “Mama, go.” I looked at her incredulously and replied, “You want me to leave?” This was the same child who screamed bloody murder if she was not holding my hand for the entire duration of our trip. Normally, she is a very easy going child, but if she was not holding my hand in the car, while in her stroller, in her sleep, or in her high chair at the restaurants, she would tip her head back and wail like a banshee. So, imagine my surprise at being told to leave…or so I thought.
“No, Mama…GO. Goooooooo…..goooooooooo…”
“Oh…you want to watch Frozen? Let It Go?”
“Yes, Mama! Go!”
And so I placed the movie into the Blu-Ray player for the first of 417 times. When my daughter watches this movie, her face is filled with such complete rapture that it is infectious. I normally would want her engaged in some sort of traditional educational activity like building block towers or identifying animal sounds in a picture book, but I cannot seem to help myself from pushing play on the movie for the 418th time. I, too, have fallen under Elsa’s spell.
“For the first time in foreverrrrr…” (sorry, I had to) I can actually pick up a book of my own or prepare dinner because my daughter is more interested in Olaf’s attention than my own. Of course, if it is time to sing “Let It Go”, she grabs my husband and I by the hands and drags us to watch Elsa come into her own and become who she was meant to be. Can I claim that I am exposing her to female empowerment albeit set to a catchy tune?
Whether it is Elsa’s work or global warming, it happens to be very cold outside. Too cold for a regular walks and trips to the park. “In summerrrr…” (again, sorry) we will resume our outdoor excursions, but for now I am going to allow the daily viewing of “Go”. Is it the best educational activity? No. However, it is musical and engaging. Watching my daughter sing, dance, and act out the movie would melt even the most frozen of hearts. And so I have decided to just let it gooooo…let it gooooo…let it gooooo…
A Mama Tale 