Captain’s Log. Daddy Chronicles. Diaper Date 1611.
Children are wonderful. They teach you so much about yourself. You grow with them…blah, blah, blah. Not discounting the warm fluffy stuff (I am warm and fluffy), but not everyday is a Walton’s after school special (young people look it up). I used to watch Little House on the Prairie and marvel about how Laura Ingalls Wilder would just room the tall grass (umm snakes) and simply play in nature. She had very few toys and she had fun – unless, of course, it wad the episode where she had scarlett fever, no one was home, and her sisters had to take care of her – but then someone knocked over a lamp and the house was on fire, but pa wasn’t home and there was a hole in the bucket…you get the idea.
Times have changed and so have our kids.
I used to have an office. It was nice. Manly. T.V., video games, couch, coffee table, computer desk…and then the eldest started cooking. The office then got shoved into the guest room.
Then, just when we thought we knew what we were doing, the diaper dweller announced his presence with authority.
And now, what used to be my living room, my de facto office…is overrun with toys.
And they all make noise.
When I was a kid it took a healthy imagination to play with toys. Our toys didn’t speak at you. Even G.I. Joe, with the kung fu grip, required you to build a backstory.
Now? These toys talk and beep and count and think and torture. You would think they would have built one to do the laundry by now…
You ever walk through a dark room filled with chattering, blinking, happy toys. It is unsettling. The Captain has nearly wet the deck on several occassions while simply trying to let the dog out in the middle of the night. It is almost like E.T. meets Toy Story meets Chucky.
One night, the Captain was simply trying to let the trusty canine out for an late night oh my gosh are you kidding me? Really? It is really 2 in the morning and I know you are just going to howl at the freaking moon but if I don’t let you go then you will either pee on my floor, or worse,wake up my wife and one or both of the kids. You are evil. How do you live with yourself. I wouldn’t do this to you if I had to pee in the middle of the night. Don’t let me catch you sleeping I know where you live you better at least pee a little to make this worth my while oh my goodness do you hear every joint in my body popping and cracking and protesting getting up AT TWO OCLOCK IN THE MORNING! evening reprieve when it happened.
She spoke to me. Not the dog.
Out of the darkness…the Leapfrog Lady sang to me.
Her voice is that of a sultry classically trained very good lounge singer. Someone with a hint of the blues in the soul of her voice.
The Captain was sleepy. Delirious. I realize that she was just singing about colors and numbers, but I truly thought she was singing.
To me.
“Bicycles, tricycles vroom vroom vroom. From A to Z I zoom Zoom ZOOM!”
You should hear her sing the alphabet. This woman has talent. I can’t help but shake my hips.
Since that night the Leapfrog Lady, I call her Billie, and I have hung out a number of times. She serenades me when I let out the dog, or if a cat happens to tickle one of her keys. The diaper dweller likes her too. He smiles when she sings the same song for the hundredth time. Billie has been good to my family.
And one day she will find herself on a table, with a price tag, wooing garage sale goers. But Billie and I will always have our A, B, C’s.
Captain out.