WOSTER: Of princesses, princes and happily ever after

• Terry Woster

Terry Woster

Talk about it

Much may be said about princesses, especially Disney princesses, and one of the constants is that they tend to wind up hitched to princes for a life of, you know, happily ever after.

My granddaughter is much into princesses these days. She turned 5 recently, a perfect age to be entranced by young lovelies in sparkling evening gowns and surrounded by birds with voices that fill the woods, cats and dogs with magical, mystical powers and forks, spoons, pots and tea kettles that talk and sing better than the cast of a Broadway musical.

She loves to make-believe about being one those princesses, and she has a collection of Barbie-style dolls named and styled after every Disney princess ever to see time on the silver screen.

It’s been this way for more than a year.

Her grandmother feeds into the child’s fantasy just a bit. In fact, she’s the source of many of those dolls that fill boxes and baskets in the granddaughter’s home.

My 5-year-old granddaughter may not have her very own fairy godmother, but she surely has the next best thing in her Grandma Nancy.

And, who am I to complain? I grew up, too, knowing that, “When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true.”

The granddaughter does have a heartfelt belief that princesses marry princes, sooner or later. Her cousin from Brookings and her aunt from Denver have been working with her gently on the idea that not every last princess in the known universe absolutely must marry a prince and settle for happily ever after.

It isn’t such a terrible thing, the cousin and the aunt tell the child, if one or two princesses stay single for a while and experience whatever kind of happily ever after should come their way without a prince to romp around on a white stallion and all that.

The granddaughter seems open to that idea, suggesting that those others, when they’re playing with the dolls, may remain single. As for the granddaughter, she’s thinking the aisle, the ring, the altar, the whole deal.

Of course, for a time — and perhaps it remains so — this granddaughter was intent on marrying Justin Bieber, so perhaps Prince Charming isn’t such a bad second choice.

We’ve had a tradition in our family for at least the past 16 years of asking granddaughters what kind of cake they’d like for their birthdays.

When I say we, I mean Nancy. And when I say “What kind,” I mean what shape, theme or design, and not chocolate or yellow or poppy seed.

This granddaughter, this birthday, wanted a princess cake. It turns out, that meant a cake built around a Barbie doll and crafted so that it became the doll’s gown.

Well.

Did you know you can go online and find videos that show how to fashion, bake and then decorate such a cake? True story.

And here I’d been thinking the Internet was full of stuff and nonsense.

Now, again, I have no cause to complain. I don’t make the cakes. I do participate on occasion. When Grandma Nancy created ruby slippers and a yellow brick road, the road was made from yellow M&Ms.

It takes a whole lot of bags of M&Ms to find enough yellow ones for a brick road from Munchkinland to Oz.

To me fell the chore of disposing of the non-yellow M&Ms in all those bags. Tough duty, but that’s what grandpas are for.

This Barbie princess cake, it was a doozy.

It came together in less time than the Bible says it took to create the Earth and all its creatures, but not so much less.

Grandma Nancy had seven kinds of icing, a dozen different shaped tips for making stars and moons and stuff on the dresses.

She sent me to the store twice for more cake mix and more icing. In the end, she created a masterpiece.

Seriously.

I watched the how-to video with her, and though I would never have told her, I didn’t think she could do it.

Anyone who wants to see love in action ought to stop by our kitchen when Grandma Nancy is making a special-order birthday cake.

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