Before my daughter hit the middle-school years, she was in love with dolls and princesses and the color pink. She also yelled "Mommy" with such enthusiasm when I got home from work that I felt like she was giving me a lovely bouquet of daffodils. So it took some getting used to when she turned 11, chucked the dolls and no longer greeted me like a long-lost friend.

This was never clearer than when my husband and I took our kids to Florida one spring break. I thought the trip would be good for us, like Vitamin C. Our daughter was 12, our son, 10, and it was our first trip to Florida as a family. This would be a fun vacation. We'd hang loose and indulge in the tropical sunshine. We'd sleep in and eat breakfast at noon. We'd spend hours at the beach, frolicking in the Gulf of Mexico. And of course, we'd do it all together.

I knew the sun part would be hard on my fair-skinned husband, but I didn't think my daughter would lose interest so quickly. She had wanted to return home with a tan she could show off to her friends, but after a couple days of poorly applied sunscreen, she abandoned the sunshine, preferring reruns of High School Musical and MTV to a chaise lounge at the pool.

Her choices didn't sit well with my son, who, like me, wanted the whole family together.

"All you want to do is stay inside and watch TV!" my son said to my daughter.

"No, I don't. I just don't want to go to the beach. There's gross stuff in the water."

"Yeah, right. You just wanna watch the Disney Channel. What a baby!" he replied.

"Go away!"

How could we pry our daughter away from the TV? “Maybe you could talk her into going to the beach,” I told my husband. “It is a family vacation.” But parental involvement didn't work either.

“It’s vacation! If she’s happy watching TV," my husband said, "let her."

I don't know. That didn't sit right with me. I wanted her to have fun: to get drenched by waves and jump in the pool and go home with a tan —  and with the enthusiasm she'd had a year or so earlier. I didn't want to leave her in the condo. Something had to change. Something had to lure her out of this.

Little did I know that Cinderella could be truly magical. The abundance of Cinderella-themed stuff at Disney World, the "happiest place on earth" we visited a few days into our trip, produced a change, a softening, in our daughter. No longer a morose adolescent, she had blossomed into a princess-in-waiting.

I was thrilled that she wanted to endure the repetitive journey of "It's a Small World, After All." It was wonderful to watch her purchase a pretty pink bag with black patent leather straps and a large imprint of no-mistaking-it's-Cinderella on the front.

My daughter's fascination with Fantasy Land, Cinderella’s home at Disney World, made her think about the Tea Cups, a relatively tame ride that went around in a circle and up and down a bit, in a teacup. It seemed for a moment that she was torn by her own indecision. I think she wondered if she'd be able to ride the cups and still feel mature. Or would the morose adolescent make a comeback? 

"Aww, you don't want to go on the Tea Cups," my husband growled. "That ride is for wimps!"

Oh, why'd he say that? That's not what I wanted. I wanted the princess.

Suddenly, she decided not to go.

"Are you sure you don't want to go on the Tea Cups?  I think they're so cute. You'd really enjoy them," I encouraged her.

"No, Mom."

So that was it. Poof! In an instant, my princess had slipped away. But having seen her, if only for a moment, I had the feeling she'd come back. Just not today.

Epilogue: The princess, now a Seaholm High School graduate and current MSU freshman, turns 18 this month. In the years since this episode, she has proved capable of delightful companionship, who, one time, didn’t object when her mother accompanied her to a Jonas Brothers concert.