The Mom I Want to Be

Build a fairy bower. To make a twinkling hideout, hang flowered sheets over two strings suspended between walls. Then run holiday lights under the sheets (alongside the strings), and your daughter will have a sparkling fairy bower where she can eat fairy food: tiny jelly sandwiches and tea with honey and a drop of pink food coloring.

Make fairy dust.

• Pull petals off roses and other flowers and lay them out overnight so they air-dry and crumble easily.
• The next day, have your child paint a cookie sheet with glitter glue (you can find it at craft stores).
• After it dries (in about an hour), peel it off in one sheet and let your child cut it up into small pieces.
• Combine the flowers and bits of glitter glue together and store in a tiny glass jar, which your child can also decorate with flower stickers or metallic pens.

Catch a movie. Two gems for kids 5 and up: Fairy Tale: A True Story ($15 DVD or VHS, Paramount) is the classic film (and real-life story) about two girls in England who take photos of fairies and find them-selves at the center of controversy — do fairies really exist? — during World War I. For a more modern and hilarious cinematic take on fairies, try Ella Enchanted ($20 DVD, $16 VHS, Disney), a tale of magic gone awry.

 

Look up fairy lore. You’ll find the names and stories of hundreds of fairies in the “Fairy Lore” section of Efairies.com. There’s also access to loads of merchandise, from books to shimmery dresses.