Ella is convinced that every movie should have a princess and an evil queen in it. Obviously she bases this on her obsession with movies that all do seem to have a princess and an evil queen type.  Movies like Snow White, Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, and even Star Wars (Which was actually the first movie she had seen with a princess in it. And although there is no evil queen, Darth Vader more than makes up for it).

I thought I had died and gone to heaven the day Ella asked if she could watch Star Wars. I hadn’t prompted her at all and had not planned on showing it to her until she was older. So I am still not sure how she got the idea – I am guessing maybe one of the older boys at the babysitter’s had mentioned it. I never even bothered to ask how she heard of it, I just sprung into action to find the original Star Wars.

Oddly, I couldn’t find the original. Since there was no way I was going to show her one of the others in the series until she had seen the original, we were off to Wal-Mart to buy a new Star Wars DVD. My obvious excitement during this father/daughter shopping trip may very well have added to the hype of it all. But I was ecstatic and  really hoping once we started watching the movie she would actually like it, or at least show some sort of interest beyond the first few minutes.

The rest is history – she loved it! Especially Darth Vader and the droids (because of their funny names). She wanted to watch it over and over. She told all her little cousins about it, and made them all watch it when they visited one night. She even asked to dress as Darth Vader for Halloween, of course we weren’t sure about a 2-year-old girl dressing as the Dark Lord of the Sith, so we were glad when she went as something a little cuter instead.

She has now made her way through both trilogies, but the original film is still her favorite. She has watched it many times (even when I can’t watch it with her). It is still her go-to movie at times, like when she felt ill at the water park and all she wanted to do was cuddle with daddy and watch Star Wars (brings tears to my eyes!).

She and I have had numerous lightsaber fights duels with cardboard giftwrapper rolls. And recently, Ella asked me to play make-believe with her, with this awesome invitation:

“Hey Daddy, let’s play. You be Han Solo and I’ll be Princess Leia!”.
(For the record, I will take any opportunity to be Han Solo, so afterward I changed my Facebook profile pic to Han Solo for a week or two).

Then the next night, she offered:

“Dad, how about you be a princess and I will be the evil queen.” Once I begrudgingly agreed and started pretending to be a princess she said,  “Well, queens don’t fight with lightsabers so we’ll just have to push each other.”
(Proceed to silly wrestling match that ends with Ella wrapped up in a blanket like a “burrito”.)

Adorable, or what?