BELLE! BELLE! BELLE!

If you look on my imaginary list of Things I’ll Never Ever Do, somewhere down about #45,327,846, you’ll find this: “See a Disney on Ice show”. Look at #45,327,847 and you’ll see, “Enjoy it”.

Well, I can cross two things off that list now, thanks to Drew’s Christmas gift for his adorable four-year-old goddaughter Chloe.

Some highlights:

• Sitting in the front row right next to the platform where the performers made their entrances and exits. Every time a princess would step onto the ice, Chloe would call out to them and try to show them what they looked like in the program. Sadly, repeated cries of “Belle! Belle! Belle!” went ignored.
• Drew politely asking the couple behind us if he was blocking their child’s view, then immediately realizing they had no kids with them. Apparently, some people have much different Things I’ll Never Ever Do lists than I do.
• Chloe wearing her Princess Jasmine underwear and hoping Jasmine would somehow notice.
• “Under the Sea”. Trust me: You haven’t seen it till you’ve seen it on skates.
• The souvenir salesman giving Chloe a rose.
• Chloe leaving the rose on the staging platform in hopes that Belle would pick it up. Me, ever the grade school weenie, terrified the rose would interfere with the performance and cause one of the skaters to break their neck or, worse, get us, y’know, in trouble. Wanting to take it back but afraid Chloe would get upset if I did. Then, watching Cinderella’s evil stepsister discovering the rose and proceeding to work it into her act, clutching it to her chest and smiling romantically, then dancing around with it for the rest of the number. (This simple act singlehandedly restored my faith in humanity and made this woman my all-time favorite ice-dancer, for whatever that’s worth.)
• Knowing that Disney on Ice will now be an annual tradition, until the day, years from now, when a teenage Chloe rolls her eyes and goes, “Aw, like, no way, man! That is, like, so lame!”. And that will be the day my heart finally breaks.