Sleeping Beauty, You Hussy!

Poor Cinderella. Big Sister has tossed her aside like last day’s newspaper and picked up Sleeping Beauty instead. Mama says that happens sometimes. Young girls can be fickle with their love.

Not me. I only love Mama. That’s the way it will ever be.

Now everything with Sister is Sleeping Beauty. Sleeping Beauty books, crowns, shoes, dresses, pictures, crafts, songs, cups, plates, pretend. Even Sleeping Beauty The Video.

Except that Big Sister is too chicken to watch Sleeping Beauty The Video. She only made it to the part with the fairies before we had to turn it off.

Mama took us to the library and Big Sister cleaned them out of all their Sleeping Beauty books. Fairy Tales, Disney books, Waking Beauty, Sleeping Ugly—you name it, she got it. Now librarian Sheila knows Sabrina as “the princess girl.”

Mama got us Grimm’s Fairy Tales because "The Sleeping Beauty" is in it, and boy is that real story grim. Things go super poorly for that girl after she marries the prince. The prince’s mama doesn’t like Sleeping Beauty or Sleeping Beauty’s children. She decides to eat her own grandchildren for dinner. It’s a yucky story. Luckily, that bad grandma gets eaten by her own nest of snakes. Take that, mean grandmother!

Mama says Oma would never eat us. She might try to cook Daddy in a pot, but not us.

Today we went to Wal-Mart and Big Sister picked out a Sleeping Beauty outfit for Halloween. Mama says she can’t wear it until the first Halloween party, but she can look at it. So Sister hung it on the mantle. She wanders over 57 times a minute so she can look at it and touch it and make it dance. It’s creepy. It’s like the headless horse-dress is dancing in the living room.

Big Sister asks questions about Sleeping Beauty all the time. She especially asks why the mean fairy wanted Sleeping Beauty to die. Mama says the mean fairy was put out because she wasn’t invited to the party. Plus, she might have been having a really bad day. But Mama says a bad day doesn’t excuse cursing someone and wanting her to die.

Sister pretends to be Sleeping Beauty. She pricks her finger on a pretend spindle and Daddy wakes her with a kiss. Mama says it’s better than all the pretend dress-tearing that was going on during the Cinderella phase.

Mama’s not too pleased with this princess stuff in general. Mama says instead of going to the ball and getting a prince and a crown, all those princesses ought to go to graduate school and get a job and a 401K.

What’s a 401K?

Mama says the worst offender is The Little Mermaid. That Ariel has to make Prince Eric fall in love with her, and Ariel can’t talk or use her big talent, her voice. Mama says any prince who would fall in love with you on looks alone isn’t the kind of fellow you want. Mama says in the real story the mean witch-y octopus Ursula sends in a ringer and Prince Eric falls in love with the pretender instead and Ariel loses everything to Ursula. Mama says it serves her right, even if the prince’s name is Eric. Like Daddy! Except we’re pretty sure Daddy didn’t fall for Mama on looks alone. We’ve seen her in the morning.

Sister says that a mean Octopus should be a boy, not a girl. She has a good point.

Big Sister Sabrina is a little confused about what makes a princess. Mama says a princess is the daughter of a king and queen or the wife of a prince. Mama says you can be a princess by birth, by marriage, or by attitude.

“Mama?” asked Sabrina. “Did you become a princess when you married Daddy?”

“No,” said Mama. “But maybe you shouldn’t ask Daddy that question.”

Love,
Little Nea

P.S. Sabrina keeps asking when Nea is going to die and go to heaven. I really hope Sabrina gets invited to all the parties and doesn’t have any bad days, or I could be in trouble.