Wandering the World 8/26/08

Reader Mark R. shares the story of his daughter's visit to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique.

On our first day this trip, we ended up in the Downtown Disney store, As we were walking around, we noticed that there is a 'little girl spa' in the back called Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique. It is a place where young girls go and get their hair, makeup, nails etc done and dress up like one of the Disney Princesses. I guess in the under 10 demographic, it is a pretty important place.

So… alone, I walk up to the girl at the 'completely overrun with young girls and their family' front desk and ask if they have just nail polish services. She says no, they only do full packages of hair, nails, makeup. I explain to her that my daughter Haidyn has no hair. She replies that they can work with fine or thin hair. So I point over to Haidyn (age 4), the girl looks, and then… the Magic begins….. You see, Haidyn has Leukemia and has lost her hair from the chemo.
	This place is packed with young girls in various stage of princess-ification. Two of the Fairy Godmothers instantly sweep up Haidyn and she is now the star of the whole place. (I feel a little bad for the other little girls – everyone that works there wants to be part of Haidyn's experience. I counted 5 beauticians and 2 photographers elbowing their way in.)
With her salon cape on, she selects her nail polish, all kinds of makeup, and of course jewelry. After a good 30-40 minutes of princess-ification they apply her sash, a fair amount of pixie dust to her head and spin her towards the mirror to show her the results.
	Of the 30 or so people in the spa, there wasn't anyone with a dry eye. In all her glory – Haidyn is now officially a Disney Princess. They had taken a girl with no hair and made her the fairest princess of them all.
If you are interested in following Haidyn's battle with Leukemia, you can do that here: www.CaringBridge.org/Visit/Haidyn