Emilia doesn’t really care all that much about princesses. When I told her that we were going to go see Disney Princesses on Ice,* she asked, “will they be playing hockey?“

— “No, but they’ll be skating.”

“Will it be fast skating?”

— “Pretty fast.”

“Okay then.”

We brought along a Snow White costume that she inherited from a cousin, which she insisted that she was not going to wear – “Can’t I bring my witch costume? Or Buzz Lightyear?” – until we got to the show and she saw her best friend decked out in her best princess finery, at which point she decided, as I had expected, that she would be a princess, but only if she could keep her pants on underneath the dress, “because that’s where my pockets are, and I have stuff in there.”

And so she did, and it was awesome. Because she knows that being a princess is just a matter of being your own darn self, sticker-filled pockets and all.

Some might quibble with me on that point. Some might – would – say that princesses are inherently problematic, from a feminist perspective, or whatever. I’ve waffled around on those arguments myself. But then I see this…

…and listen to her explain how she likes how Ariel rescues the prince and how the girl-skaters are more fun to watch than the boy-skaters and how it was really smart of Cinderella to save her shoe and did Mulan really fight all those soldiers and did I know that the bad fairy (from Sleeping Fairy) is kind of neat because she blows stuff up with fire? and I think, whatever. Because, my girl? She gets it. And if there’s a little sparkly princess action bound up in that it, then fine.

There are worse things. And who doesn’t love a bit of sparkle?

*Disclosure: we went as guests of MomCentral Canada. Thanks, MomCentral!