I had the windows cracked to let cool air blow on her as we sped along the road. It tangles her wavy curls and through the rear-view mirror I see her push them out of her face and giggle.

Over Taylor Swift’s latest Top 40 hit I hear, “Mommy, Snow White texted me from Hawaii!”

I laughed and said, “She did! What did she say?” That’s when my 4-year-old prattled the way she does, inventing stories in her head. Stories. Always stories. It seems fairy tales never leave her. Whether an adventure of her own making, or one she’s seen or read a million times, they are there. She acts them out. She retells them with toys. She takes well-known tales that made it to the big screen and makes them far more amazing than Hollywood could.

“Mommy, what is Hawaii like?”

Except for facts. Facts stop her fantasies. She wants to know more of them. I tell her how Hawaii is a state made of islands. I tell her about tropical beaches, rainforests and volcanoes.

“Mommy can we go there some time?”

I peek at the mirror and say, “Sure baby, when your brother gets older.”

“Mommy, when he gets older can we go to Disney World?”

Back to fantasy. She informs me that’s where the real Anna and Elsa are. She wants to know if we can meet them and all of the princesses. I assure her that there is no way we would brave the Orlando heat without making sure she got to meet her heroes.

Later I ask her what she wants to be when she grows up.

“I’m going to be an astronaut. Mommy, I’m going to go to Jupiter, where that spot is.”

I applaud her for her ambition to be the first earthling on Jupiter. She asks me what Jupiter is made of. She tells me how you can’t breathe in outer space. She names all the planets and their characteristics. She tells me how Pluto is too small to be a planet. Facts. Science. She craves knowledge.

She dresses in princess costumes while reading about animals. She stares at the sky and tells me what the clouds are made of, but tells me what shapes her imagination sees in the millions of water droplets.

Fantasy and facts. She needs both to make sense of her world. She needs both to form the stories she will surely tell us one day.

“Mommy, I’m going to be an astronaut, but a princess astronaut.”

Yes. I know.