Me: “Tyler, you’re not going out of the house with sandals on. It’s like twenty freaking degrees out there.”
Tyler: “That’s OK. I’ll just put socks on under them!”
Where did my kid pick up such blatant disregard for the rules of fashion? It makes me shake my head so hard my scrunchie nearly falls out.
Starting at the age of four I was fascinated with the Jetsons. Every time I saw those phones with TV screens attached I wondered, “Will I still be alive when they finally get around to making one of those?”
Last weekend, my own four-year-old daughter stood before her aunt/uncle/cousins’ TV and watched her grandmother, a snowbird from Florida, skyping with us for the first time. She pressed her hands to the screen, mesmerized, and gasped. “Grandma,” she whispered, “are you real?”
After a few exchanges, she had a fantastic idea. “I want to play hide and seek,” she announced as Grandpa peeked at her over her grandmother’s shoulder. “Follow me!” And with that, she bolted into the kitchen, abandoning her bemused grandparents on the TV screen.
Apparently, today’s generation of four-year-olds have far greater expectations of technology than mine did. Not that I, a not-so-proud owner of a VCR, boom box and answering machine, by any right should speak for an entire generation.
Now that she’s mastered her ABC’s, perhaps my girl can clarify the difference between the iPhone, iPad and iPod? Until then, I’m still waiting for moving sidewalks, robots who can feel emotion, and my very own flying saucer.
This weekend we all headed to the aunt/uncle/cousins’ for a belated Christmas dinner. While there, I hung out with my spectacular niece and nephews, went sledding with the kids, and rolled around the floor with their permanently ecstatic dog, Clover.
Upon returning home, my own dogs sniffed me so furiously they almost vacuumed my pants with their noses. Then they looked at me like this (see pic).
I swear it’s the same look I get from the bagger at Big Y whenever I present him with green reusable bags from Stop & Shop. Or when I accidentally hand the cashier my card from Shaw’s. The bitter taste of betrayal is near impossible to swallow.
It’s a good thing I don’t have the energy for an extramarital affair. I just don’t have it in me.
… a wall-to-wall carpet of puzzle pieces; Lincoln Logs; Megablocks; Wedgits; Monster Puppet googly eyes and fuzzy noses; Mr. Potato Head body parts; Dominos; Legos; princess dresses, shoes and tiaras; dollhouse, barn and castle accessories; dress-up jewels; Barbie torsos with no appendages.
From beneath the rubble, a tiny hand emerges with the remote control. It takes aim at the TV and fires.
The gift-unwrapping, box-ripping, tie-cutting, game-assembling, battery-inserting frenzy draws to another anticlimactic end.