It was a sunny early Tuesday evening in the summer of 2002. The bright sun was still high in the clear blue sky, as it is in this part of the world at that time of the year. A couple of weeks prior, Obah-chan (grandma in Japanese) and her husband moved into their new house, which was four houses away from their son's, in a suburb of Calgary. This was because they wanted to help take care of their grandchildren as their son’s wife was expecting their second child that fall.

The home they had moved into was just finished being built, and there were no house numbers placed in front of it yet. So on that beautiful evening, Obah-chan’s husband decided to put up the five individual house number plates that would indicate their address. First, he took out a ladder from the garage and set it by the wooden pillar in front of their house, where the five steel plates were to be placed. He climbed two steps up the ladder and began to screw in each plate that Obah-chan handed him.

At the same time, Obah-chan’s three year granddaughter M, who lived just four houses away, had been playing outside while her parents worked on their lawn. She noticed the commotion in front of Obah-chan’s house and decided to walk towards her grandparents’ new house. Just like a princess, she was wearing a pale sky-blue knee length dress and a shiny silver Tiera on her head. When she approached the ladder, she looked up her grandfather while squinting her pretty brown eyes. Then she raised her right hand and tugged on her grandfather’s shorts. Her grandfather looked down and saw M dressed in her costume with the Tiera on her head.

“Who are you?” grandpa asked M.

“A princess” M answered as he turned to continue with his task.

M tugged on her grandpa’s shorts again.

“What’s you doing? Grandpa?” She asked him with much curiosity,

"I'm working sweetheart. I’m putting house numbers on our new home."

He turned back to his work but felt another tug on his shorts

"Is it hard work?" asked the granddaughter.

"It sure is hard work” he said. As he spoke, her grandpa lovingly looked down on his granddaughter.

"Oh..." the granddaughter M paused a little and then tilted her head while she placed her hand to support her jaw as if she was thinking what to say next.

Once again grandpa turn to screw another number on the pillar but was interrupted with a tug on his shorts.

"Grandpa, do you know that a princess' job is hard, too?” The granddaughter said to him.

“How so?" asked the grandpa.

"Well if you are going to be Sleeping Beauty you have to sleep a lot! It's a very hard job. "