Another charming operation

New day. New prince. Same outcome.

Sydney somehow managed to sweet talk her Daddy into buying her a new Prince Charming. (Apparently Disney now offers inexpensive two-packs of princess and prince.) From what I was told, the purchase was made at approximately 5 p.m. By the time I got home from work - a little more than an hour later - the new prince was already in three pieces.

"It's okay," Sydney assured me. "It was an accident."

"It may have been an accident," I told her, "but he's still broken."

Fully confident in my ability to heal small plastic royalty, Sydney held up her broken prince and responded with two words: "Super Glue."

As it turned out, the new prince has some magical abilities of his own. Faster than Super Glue can dry, he turned my little procrastinator into a child who couldn't wait for bedtime.

I carefully glued the bottom of Prince Charming's jacket over his legs, then fitted and glued his torso on top of that. Oh, who am I kidding? The only thing I was careful about was avoiding getting Super Glue on my fingers. I globbed on enough glue to re-create the commercial of the guy holding on to a hard hat hanging from a bridge, stuck the three pieces together and then propped Mr. Charming upright on the counter to dry.

Sydney was so excited to see him in one piece, she made a mad dash to grab him as I screamed, "NO!"

I explained that she couldn't touch him because the glue needed time to dry. She looked at my warily for a moment, and then asked, "is it dry now?" 

"No, he probably won't be dry until bedtime."

"How long is it until bedtime?"

"A couple of hours."

That apparently was too long to wait. Hoping to speed things along, Sydney disappeared briefly into her room, returning with pajamas in hand. "Mommy, can you help me change?"

I was more than happy to avoid this portion of the usual bedtime battles, but I warned her that her Prince still wasn't ready to dance. A short time later, remembering that Super Glue tends to dry quickly, I checked on his royal highness and he seemed ready to be released.

Sydney was overjoyed. I hadn't realized a royal wedding had been on hold pending the outcome of this surgery. But now Cinderella and her Prince were ready to make their trip down the aisle, with the original Prince Charming serving as witness.

The new prince's hips will never swivel again, but 24 hours later the glue is holding. Charming.