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When you start to write about Valentine’s Day you never know where it will take you.  I got the flu! But before I got sick I got to go to the far away magical kingdom of Swan Lake.

The perfect venue to ring in Valentine’s Day week for me was going to the ballet to see “Swan Lake”, what an amazing performance. I love everything about it, the music, the dancing, the costumes and the sets. Tragic stories have so many layers that they translate well into dance, theater or movies.  I took my youngest daughter to see it, my oldest has seen them all and is taking a break from tutus. But she agrees with me that the moral of this ballet is that princes are idiots. My teen disagreed heartedly, such a romantic child. We just pointed out to her that Prince Charming in “Into the Wood” was an idiot too. I don’t think she appreciates our sense of humor, what can I say Oldest daughter and I would both win the Ms. Practical and Independent titles. Princes turn into toads more often than frogs turn into princes.

What’s a prince to do after he has just met the love of his life who has been turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer? Go to the ball his mother organized for his 21st birthday to please her, not recognize the evil sorcerer at the ball, dance with a swan that looks identical to his, except she is wearing a black dress, she doesn’t seem nice at all (the way she teases him when they dance), I could see it but poor Prince Siegfried is obviously only seeing the outer beauty. “Shallow Al” comes to mind. Must be a young prince thing. When my daughters first saw “Swan Lake” with grandpa and grandma, they were very young and totally unprepared for the ending, blame it on the “Swan Princess” movies and “Barbie’s Swan Lake” DVD. Of course older sister had to confirm to younger one that yes Odette was indeed dead, shot by the prince’s arrow when she stopped him from killing the sorcerer. In this ballet version she stays a swan forever which I much prefer. I would like to know why the sorcerer is keeping Odette prisoner for ever, it seems overly cruel and unnecessary, but my artistic younger child says we can’t judge since we don’t know the background. Thank you “Maleficent”.

My girls have always been interested in all the Disney productions, they are a lot of fun to watch especially the newer princesses. They can sing along all the songs in each movie. As the girls got older they dug deeper into the stories, they read the original endings. It can be shocking after you’ve watched the Little Mermaid a hundred times to find out that she actually dies in the original version. I did my best to explain why it was written that way, “Back in the days if you had a disability you were out of the running to be a princess.” “Princes were cutthroat:” “Love you but you are mute, sorry this girl over here is pretty too, she can talk and she comes with a hefty dowry. Have to think of the kingdom you know.” So we agreed that the Disney versions work better, it is entertainment not a representation of society after all, just a fun story.  It seems that all princes are 21 and princesses are usually 16 in the cartoon versions. No wonder that the stories end right at “…and they lived happily ever after.” I’d love to write some of the epilogues just for my own entertainment.

Of course as a mom I worried how this pink and unrealistic world of princesses would affect their emotional growth. So far I am pleased to say that my two daughters are no damsels in distress.  When they played princesses they were more like the Drew Barrymore character in “Ever After” or Robin White’s in “Princess Bride”. Their barbies had all kinds of adventures while looking very stylish. “Why did you cut all her hair off?” “It got tangled so she is our barbie who survived chemotherapy mom, sometimes she is our special force warrior.” It was not all princesses though, they played “Harry Potter” in the woods, their hand made wands conjured up all kinds of spells. I even had a whole slew of “Katniss Everdeen” with bows and arrows darting through the trees. Those days are gone, now they watch “Games of Thrones”, I am the one who can’t bring myself to watch it, too violent for my tastes.

So how did this week end? On a happy musical note. After catching the flu the day before Valentine’s Day, getting better due to modern anti-virus medicine, I was able to go to our planned all girls’ night out to see the hilarious musical “Mamma Mia”.  It felt really good to be out with my daughters, cousins and their daughters. We call it making memories. Thanks to the A-Teens group and the movie Mamma Mia our girls are very familiar with Abba music. For some reason I never tire of theirs songs. Like the character of Donna Sheridan in “Mamma Mia” it was good to show our girls that older moms are still fun to hang out with. Looking forward to building more memories with our little gang of princess warriors.