Back It Up

The other day I saw a wishing well. It was actually a wooden planter made to look like a wishing well, but that doesn’t matter when you have a good imagination, you’re two, or both. Scarlett has been pretty enthralled by “Snow White” lately so I knew she would get excited about it. Now, planters don’t just spring up by themselves, they get placed in yards by people--and the yards are ordinarily theirs. So, if you didn’t put a wishing well with violets or cyclamen somewhere, chances are pretty good you have to trespass to see it. Which is a dilemma, right? I made a point of drawing her attention to this cool thing that belonged to someone else, and now she was interested. Understandable, but not the best “respecting privacy” lesson. It’s entirely likely that anyone with enough whimsy to put a flowering wishing well in their yard wouldn’t mind if a two year-old Snow White fan took a trespassing peek, but maybe not and certainly not everyone would feel that way about the invasion. It’s one of those moments when you realize, belatedly, that you made a bad parent call and then have to back up a bit. We compromised by standing on the public sidewalk and looking at the wishing well. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best I could do. In Megan E. Bryant’s Snow White, Strawberry Shortcake and her berry best friends replay the classic story. But they do it without breaking any laws.

http://www.amazon.com/Snow-White-Berry-Strawberry-Shortcake/dp/0448444585

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/91762.Megan_E_Bryant

The Wonderful World Of Disney

Therapy. I literally think that is what viewing Disney movies leads to. Or at least should. Remember how freaked out you got at Malificent as a giant fire-breathing dragon? Or Jafar becoming a massive killer snake? Remember how upset you felt when Pinocchio and Mufasa and the fifteenth Dalmatian puppy (for a moment) died? Think of Jessie’s “When She Loved Me” montage. And John Smith leaving. And the cut-her-heart-out-and-put-it-in-this-box Snow White queen. Those step-sisters ripping up Cinderella’s first dress--lovingly created by all her little friends--made my younger brother cry. No one will love Mulan for who she is, Aladdin can’t marry the princess because he’s poor, Lady gets muzzled, Mowgli gets sent back to the man village, Belle can never see her father again, Bernard feels inadequate next to Jake, and Ariel’s dad tears the dickens out of her favorite stuff. Big drama for little minds to try and wrap around. Even big minds, sometimes. But, undoubtedly, the single most tragic moment in the Disney pantheon has got to be…Bambi’s mom. You know you were thinking it. That scene is synonymous with trauma in the common vernacular. For good reason--it’s one of the saddest things ever. Now, I understand that loss is universal and we must all face it some time in our lives, but Walt Disney accelerated the process for three generations of kids so far. When reading Disney’s Magical World of Reading Bambi, I noticed that part is still in there. I was kinda hoping for a re-write.

http://www.amazon.com/Bambi-Dumbo-Disneys-Magical-Reading/dp/1403720452

http://tv.disney.go.com/playhouse/

Once Upon A Time

One problem with fairy tales is that they make “happily ever after” seem like the rest of the story rather than the end of the beginning of the story. After spending hundreds of hours watching Disney movies frame-by-frame for graduate research, I know the message gets driven home that, once you sweep off to the castle, everything is hearts and flowers from that moment on. But as someone who’s been married (more than once) and had children (more than one), I know you wake up the day after the perfect wedding and the dishes don’t wash themselves--nor are there any woodland creatures around to do them. Bummer. Another facet to life after happily ever after is realizing that sometimes it’s easier to just do stuff yourself than wait for everybody else to figure it out. Especially kids. Or jewel-mining dwarfs. I felt a real kinship with the post-prince Snow White in Disney’s Snow White Makes A Change from the Kindness Counts series when she goes back to visit the little cottage in the woods and finds pandemonium once again reigns. The same thing happens to me every time I clean up after my kids. I should be better about making them clean it up themselves. I understand this, but haven’t been very good at it. Control freak meets no time meets wanting to run my house differently than the one I came from but not knowing how. The dwarfs do renew their housekeeping efforts, so maybe it’s not too late.

http://www.amazon.com/Kindness-Counts-Disney-Princess-Studio/dp/1590693647

http://disney.go.com/index