The Princess-Off

A new family just moved across the street from our house. Remembering how much I appreciated it when Hannah and Ian showed up at our door in Studio City with a plate of cookies, I baked them some brownies and the girls and I delivered them this afternoon.

Two little girls opened the door when we knocked - Carson, 4, and Delia, 2. Delia took one look at Noni, who was dressed in - what else? - a princess dress and turned around and ran back inside. A few minutes later, she reappeared. This time she was dressed in a yellow Belle dress and clutching a Sleeping Beauty and Snow White doll. Noni gasped. Seriously. I'm not just saying that -- she actually took a deep breath of air. Delia walked up to Noni and they stared at each other for a minute. Then they began admiring each other's dresses. Noni fingered the Belle brooch on Delia's dress and Delia pointed out the flowers on Noni's. They stood looking at each other in mutual admiration while I chatted with Delia's mom.

Before we left, we invited the our new neighbors to Noni's princess birthday party. Then her mom asked Noni if she'd like to come over sometime soon to see their "basement full of princess dresses."

As Cinderella says (because, yes, I can quote Cinderella off the top of my head these days), "a dream is a wish your heart makes." For a sixteen-year-old princess, that dream might be a prince on a white horse. For a two-year-old girl, a little girl with a basement full of princess dresses right across the street is about as good as it gets.

Later, the girls came over to play. You can see that Noni was a little bit excited about it.

Princess Power

When Evie was about three-years-old, her obsession with Teletubbies and The Wiggles began to wane and she found a new interest: Disney Princesses. Weird looking creatures with televisions on their bellies hadn't concerned me, but thick-haired, thin-waisted young women with the single dream of meeting a handsome, wealthy prince creeped me out a little. I was sure that by playing with a Cinderella doll she was quickly heading down the path of ending up as the next Paris Hilton. Such is the way of thinking with the first child.

Six years later, Evie is a happy third grader who recently joined the school math team and refuses to wear anything but Circo sweatpants from Target. So with her two-year-old younger sister Noni, who has recently transitioned from Sesame Street ("Sunny Days") to the Princess set, I am embracing this stage. I realize now that it is just a stop on the path of self-discovery for her. And, I should add that if she grows up to love dresses and dancing and handsome men, that's all good too. (A certain third grader is very excited about the formal "third grade ball" on Thursday and a little bit nervous about asking a certain boy to dance.) Playing with her Cinderalla doll right now is not going to define Noni's personality one way or another. And so, I happily ordered her a Disney Princess shirt for Christmas (which is somewhere in California as we speak, but that's a different story) and today I took all three girls to see Noni's first movie in a theater: The Princess and The Frog.

I'd like to give Disney a few props for their princess evolution over the past few years. When I was little, we had Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. Since then, six more princesses have been introduced, four of them are ethnic minorities in America (though only two of them actually live in America) - Mulan, Pocahontas, Jasmine and now Tiana. Mulan and Pocahontas both have their own things going on beyond princes. But to me, Tiana is the best heroine of the bunch. (Actually, the idea of a princess being a heroine wasn't even introduced when I was younger unless perhaps you count maintaining a good atitude about constantly having to clean up after three other messy people as an admirable trait. Hmmm. Come to think of it, maybe I could learn a bit from Cinderella...) A young African-American woman living in New Orleans during the jazz age, Tiana has a dream of opening a restaurant and works practically non-stop against great odds to realize that dream. Her lesson in the movie is to let more love and fun into her life, but the movie continues after the fateful smooch with the prince and her career dreams are actualized as well. (I guess that's a bit of a spoiler, but it's Disney after all. You expected the happy ending, right?) It was nice to watch a Disney movie with such a strong female character. The lack of an evil stepmother was a nice change too.

Noni and I will continue to play with her Polly Pocket-sized Jasmine, Belle, Cinderella and Snow White. We'll add Tiana to the bunch too, once some of the dolls of her are actually in stock. It's nice to know that instead of simply having them all go to a ball, Noni can also imitate a princess running a restaurant. Of course, I think she has her own ideas about what they like to do. Last week, the four princesses went for a hike up the boulders on Pearl Street.