The Cave

Before I had children, I had lots of ideas about what having children would be like. Some of them were accurate. Most of them were crap. I also had a lot of rules about what I would and would not allow my children to do. No whining - I can overcome that with great parenting skills. No eating crappy food day in and day out - they would learn to eat vegatables even if, at the age of 33, I have not. No cheerleading - sorry to all you cheerleaders out there, but I want my children on the field of play, whatever sport they choose, not jumping in unison on the sidelines. No spanking - we can reason the bratty habits out of our little darlings. And most of all, for goodness sake, no princess stories where the girl sits around in misery all day waiting for some guy to rescue her. I'm sorry, but that's just setting a lady up for failure and disappointment. And yes, this includes the big three - Cinderella, Snow White, and that louse of woman, Sleeping Beauty.

As of a couple of weeks ago, I was clinging to the threads of two of these rules. No one has signed up for cheerleading yet, although Jonas seems to be forging a path in that direction, and there were no lazy princesses in our house. Scotlen had asked me to read her Snow White at the book store one day, and I tried to oblige but could not get past the page that said something like, "Snow White cleaned and scrubbed all day long, waiting for the day that her prince would come and rescue her." Hey, Snow White, why don't you get up out of the soap suds and make a life for yourself? When the Queen kicks her out of the castle, does Snow White try out for a college scholarship? A beauty pageant? A lottery ticket? No. No she does not. She finds a place in the woods where she can clean for seven small, dirty men. Way to aim high, Snow White.

And now. Now I have caved. We are taking Scotlen to Disney World and, in preparation for the trip, I purchased and allowed her to view the movie Snow White. She loved it, of course, and watched in wide-eyed horror as the witch delivered the poison apple. I'm thinking that after the trip is over, maybe we will just "lose" the DVD.

When we told Scotlen that she was going to take a surprise trip (destination not disclosed) that would require her to ride on an airplane, she gasped and said "what planet are we going to." Upon being told that we would remain on Earth for the surprise trip she said, "where on Earth, is it South America?" Clearly we need to focus less on geography and more on budgetary realism.