Tuesday, November 11, 2003

20 YARD PENALTY. REPEAT CHILDHOOD
Life doesn't come with a playbook. You can get all sorts of advice, but in the long run, you're on your own. Call a play, hike the ball and hope for the best. Parenting? It's the same. Only instead of no playbook for one person, there is no playbook for anybody, period. And somehow, some way, everybody is supposed to be on the same team. How on earth is this ever going to happen when all you can do is call a play, hike the ball and hope for the best?

You would think, footballishly speaking, that when a play goes well, you might do it again. After all, it worked once -- go for two. If a play works twice, well then, you're on a roll. You've got their number. Nobody can stop you now. You're invincible. Until.....

Flag on the play. 20 yard penalty. Repeat the down.

.....Until you make a critical error. You blew it, and now you pay.

One of my hopes is that when I get to heaven (notice I said "when") I will get to see the playbook. I want to see what I should have done before all those penalty flags of life were thrown. It would be a very "ohhhhh" epiphany kind of experience. Very spiritual, I would think. "Ahh, yes Saint Peter, I see now...If I would have carried the two.....and used a nickel defense..... Ah yes, it makes sense to me now...."

But in the meantime I'm stuck without a playbook. And yesterday, I really needed one. I had been so successful over the weekend in weeding out some of TinyTuna's old playthings. She saw them leave, she didn't have a problem when they were given away, and I thought we had made real progress. One of the last things I got rid of on Sunday was an old bear-like thing that is attached to springs. You can bounce up on down on it. It is the perfect plaything if you are, oh say, two years old. We got this for TinyTuna back when she was, oh say, two years old, because there was one in the church nursery and she adored it. Sure enough, we bought it for Christmas, and she never touched it. This is an important fact to remember: She never touched it. Eventually it went to live in the basement, by the stove and the Fisher Price guys and all those socks which were chock-full of memories. I gave the bouncy bear to TinyTuna's Dad so he could give it to the kid. Who is, as coincidence would have it, two years old. TinyTuna saw me give it to him, and she never said a word. I swear to God -- there were no problems.

So after this weekend I'm living large. I have successfully gotten rid of a plastic stove/sink, A bag of clothes, a Fisher Price Barn AND a bouncy bear. All without tears, moaning and/or groaning. I am strong. I am invincible. And then yesterday, TinyTuna's Dad calls me to tell me how much the kid loves the bouncy bear. Adores the bouncy bear. Had to hug it goodnight. I'm happy because heck, it's one more thing out of my basement. Home I go to tell TinyTuna the good news. "Guess what? The kid loved the bouncy bear! He hugged it goodnight. You did a really good thing because now he really loves it and......."

*TWEEEEEEEET* Flag on the play.

TinyTuna bursts into a Noah's Ark flood of tears. Holy Crap! What did I do? She saw me give it to him.... We gave away lots of things.... I was strong.... I was invincible.... Dammit it. This play is supposed to work.

Oh no. She is inconsolible. She is wailing. That bear represented every single good childhood memory she has ever had. Ever. And now it's gone. And I've given it away. And she can never get it back again. Ever. She loved that bear. Loved it. It meant the world to her.

Dammit. Not only have I blown this big time, but now I have guilt the size of the Mississippi. How was I supposed to know that the bear that lived under a pile of junk in the basement for the past seven years, never once touched, was representational of every single childhood memory she has ever had? I mean, the Fisher Price dudes didn't tell me, and the socks sure as hell didn't let on. I need a playbook, dammit. In a panic, I start scrambling. "Maybe we can get it back when the kid is done with it, and you can have your childhood memories again." Nope. Zero yardage gained.

I finally make a small breakthrough when I suggest we take a camera to dads house and take a picture of the bouncy bear, and that way we can start a scrapbook of childhood memories. This seems to help. TinyTuna starts snuffling and drying her tears, and then, in her misery, launches into a long drawn-out narrative of how the kid can give the bouncy bear to his kid and so on and so on. Each child can tell the next child the story of the bouncy bear, and how it belonged to TinyTuna and brought so many children so many memories. What? Somehow Bouncy Bear has morphed into the story of "Roots"?? Saint Peter, I swear, I've got to see this playbook. But in the meantime, since she isn't sobbing anymore, I decide to go with it. I tell Kunta Kinte to change her clothes so we can "go train".

I leave shaking my head. GramTuna stops me and asks what on earth is going on. I shake my head, and all I can say is, "I didn't have a playbook."
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