thematically fickle

Ruby, like many three-year olds, is a creature of habit. Every time she wants to watch a video—which is only at breakfast, lunch, snack time (morning and afternoon), dinner, weekends and holidays—she wants to watch Pocahontas or Mulan. Whenever we let her watch a video—which is only at breakfast, lunch, dinner, weekends and holidays (snack time is family time, no exceptions!)—Sam and I have the benefit of a few alone moments, if you know what I mean. (No, not for sex. Duh. These moments are for cooking dinner and paying bills and sweeping the dog hair and for me to point to which of my clothing items should not go in the dryer. As my friend Stacy and I coined after too many cocktails and while lying on her guest room bed together with our husbands, “Marriage: It’s AWEsome!”)

And so it is that the television is the built in babysitter I swore I’d never utilize. Instead, I remind my kid 74 times a day not to sit with her nose mushed up against the television screen and then, once she’s settled a safe distance from Pocahontas’ assets, I weep for the silence (silence being the sounds of the English conquering the Savages). So grateful am I that I’ve been known to drop to my knees weeping, a form of thanks to the person who invented the TeeVee. Was that Edison? Gawd how I want him.

I can pretty much divide the last three years of my life into segments, each headlined by a movie title: There was the Baby Einstein Phase (I nixed that after two weeks, it was so stupid. I can’t believe I fell for that marketing ploy); the Teletubbies Phase (this has waned over the years but unexpectedly recurs from time to time, not unlike a painful case of herpes); there’s the Elmo Phase which ran concurrently with the Sesame Street Stomp Phase; the Little Mermaid Phase, which horrified me to no end but which I was powerless to stop; the Lady and the Tramp phase; The 101 Dalmatians Phase; and, of course, the current and seemingly never-ending Pocahontas-Mulan Phase. If I ever write a book, these will be my chapter headers.

Last night, after much goading, I persuaded Ruby to try a new video while I was braiding her hair. How about Toy Story, I said. Toy Story is great! Toy Story is awesome! Toy Story is…full of toys! It has Woody! And Mr. Potato Head! And did I mention it has toys!? Nevermind that I’ve never even seen Toy Story in it’s entirety. I just needed to experience a single Monday morning in which I did not wake up singing, “LET’S! get DOWN! to BIIIIIIIZness! and deFEAT! the HUNNNS!”

The kid went for it. But not until after we finished watching Pocahontas. You win some, you sorta win some.

When Sam got home from the grocery store and saw that we were watching something new, he almost passed out from relief. “Wow! Thanks, baby!” he said, nodding. “I was so sick of Pocahontas that I was about to poke-ah my eyes out.”

I’m guessing it won’t be long before he’s ready to leave us for a desert island with a volleyball named Wilson.