NYC Moms

Tiana the White Princess

 Photo Credit: Ana Garza of Thing Family

While watching the new Disney animated movie, The Princess and the Frog at the Ziegfeld Theatre, and then photographing my daughter next to various Disney Princesses, all of whom were at the Roseland Ballroom afterwards, as part of The Princess and the Frog Ultimate Disney Experience, it occurred to me that the "finally a Black Disney Princess" princess might become known to the preschool set as "The White Princess".  I hope it happens in our "finally a Black President" Obama in the White House America.

Princess Tiana does spend much of the movie as a frog, which might entice some more little boys into theaters.  However, she has 3 -count them three- iconic ball gowns in addition to a pretty great 1920's fantasy sequence beaded number.  I know one dress is kind of blue and the finale dress has some green layers, but the dresses are white. White like a wedding dress, white like a debutante dress, white like she is the white princess because her dress is white.

Maybe she'll become known as the green princess or the frog princess, or the cooking princess, or the princess with the strapless dress with a blue sash, but the dress she wore at the Ultimate Disney Experience was white.  A Southern Belle Princess, she's a gift to the city of New Orleans.  Also the music and story seem structured for an easy transition to the stage and I expect that soon I'll see banner on a bus announcing the stars of Disney's The Princess and the Frog on Broadway.

They're filming on our street again

They're filming on our street again.  It happens all the time.  

We live in a part of Brooklyn that looks and feels like Sesame Street, or the opening shot of The Cosby Show. My Kid won't even bother to cross the street to check out a film shoot.  In our part of the world, signs taped to lamp posts with arrows that point to "EXTRAS HOLDING" or  "TO SET" are as ordinary as fliers about lost cats and dogs. 

I remember when she was still in a stroller she was attracted to the tent over the craft services table set up a couple blocks from our apartment.  She wanted to go towards it because she thought it was a party.  It was a music video shoot. 

Another time, Dan Zanes was filming in the park next to our regular playground while my daughter and her friends watched and at least one parent had to sign a release contract because his 3-year-old wouldn't get out of the shot and the producers let him stay there listening on camera with the children who had been brought in by a casting agency. 

At the Bleecker Street Playground in Greenwich Village, I watched with amusement as some photographers were setting up a shot of a Bugaboo.  Toddlers kept coming over to play with the ball and sand bucket the stylists were artfully arranging around the wheels of the stroller. 

One Perfect Child

We were at the playground, with our daughter, who at nine, looks like one of those improbably proportioned tween dolls--all hair, eyes and legs.  She was dressed like one of those dolls too; in a pink shirt, pink pants and pink sneakers with a pink helmet and pink elbow, wrist and knee pads.  As she glided around the pavement on her pink Ripstick with the grace of an Olympic figure skater, she attracted notice.

The father of a two-year-old came over and asked us if we were happy with just one child.  He told us he and his wife were in the process of deciding whether or not to have another baby.  He had accompanied his golden-curled two-year-old to the playground, ferrying her equipment like a sherpa.  She had a little pink scooter and not one but two balls, a soccer ball AND a basket ball.  The father switched balls for the toddler depending upon her desire to kick or dribble.