By Nici Holt Cline
When my husband and I decided to have kids, I was nervous about all the STUFF that seemed to unavoidably come with them. I feared a yard peppered with plastic toys and a living room where exersaucers replaced end tables. I dreaded a diaper bag that necessitated I do the hokey pokey to fit through a doorway.
It’s because I like space between objects in my home and it’s because I didn’t want to quadruple my annual consumption of fossil fuels. It’s also because I didn’t think we needed all that snaz. I am by no means a minimalist but I do like to live simply. I thought to myself and eventually said out loud that my kids would be perfectly happy with yogurt lids, wooden spoons and hand-me-downs.
I never imagined I’d make a special trip to Target to get my two year-old a brand new, shiny pink laptop that talks. But that is exactly what happened last week. And I was so excited to do it.
A shift occurred in me as my kid grew into herself and decided what she liked all on her own. I wanted, with all of my heart, to give her dinosaur bath toys. I stayed up too late to sew her a plush duck. And when I happened upon an Elmo doll at Goodwill I was giddy like I had discovered a hundred dollar bill in my pocket.
So when she developed a fast crush on her pal’s toy computer, I took notice. I thought it would probably be short-lived but she proved her crush was legit every time we encountered that computer. My puter, she would proudly declare. She didn’t care much what her friends were playing with as long as she could plop down in a corner to type and right click away.
After the last puter sighting she kept asking me, later mama? please?, and it took me a while to figure out what she was wanting: I had told her, as she heaved with sadness earlier that day, that we’d come back and play with the computer later. She wanted to know if later would ever arrive.
And so the next day, I enthusiastically pushed a bright red cart up and down aisles until we found the puters she had been dreaming of. She picked pink and played with it all the way home. She said oh thank you mama more than once. When her dad walked in the door from work she couldn’t turn it on fast enough. Look papa! Margot’s own puter! A pink one!
For the most part, I was right. We don’t need much kid stuff. I have end tables and fit through the doorway with my diaper bag. But the thing I was dead wrong about is how badly I want bring my daughter the thing, the moment that makes her breathless with joy. I all of the sudden understand why parents spend too much money on big wheels from Santa and pony rides at birthday parties.
Exceeding my kid’s expectations is a fabulous feeling.
Margot’s own puter has since been decorated with stickers and hauled everywhere her little legs take her, mouse banging behind, memorializing her movement and this moment with new marks in our wood floors. She loves it and so I love it. Good Stuff.
A fourth generation Montanan raising a fifth, Nici Holt Cline is a mama to Margot and Ruby, wife, gardener, crafter and runner who loves to write and take photos. She writes regularly on her popular blog dig this chick. You can read “Mama Digs” every Monday exclusively at www.mamalode.com. Read more of Nici’s mamalode articles here.
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Big smile.
You are so real.
And right…there is nothing like doing something simply for the joy it will bring your little.
That pink puter is the bomb.
And, just so you know…if you give a mouse a cookie.
That puter just may lead to other things. I think she’s gunna want Photoshop. And a blog. And then she’s gunna be writing fabulous articles on that pink puter for really cool Missoula magazines.
Watch out, World. Margot has a puter.
I know you embraced her having her own play kitchen – and I see this in the same light! She’s just practicing what she sees Mama do. We’re raising our girls to be ready for the world – and that play behavior now also includes role-modeling technology.
Kuddos to you for picking out the right stuff and keeping it quality over quantity.
Omg the timing of this post is AMAZING!! Last year my mom gave my son some mismatched dinosaur socks from Little MissMatched. This weekend we officially retired them because of the holes. And what did I do? I promptly went online and started looking for replacements! My son would wear these socks daily if he could, and I never thought I’d be desperate to comply.
So neat that I’m not the only crazy Mama out there!!
I bought Alden a fiddle when he was a year-and-a-half. It’s ridiculous. I mean, he was a year and a half. And it’s a a 1/32 sized fiddle. End to end, about the length of a ruler.
It was like 35 bucks, shipped, and I felt like such a… what? a sucker? a pushy parent? Somewhere in between.
Not every day, but eery few weeks anyway, he likes to “play” it, which means he hauls it around, takes it out of the case, puts it back in, holds it whichever way he feels like, and finally puts it ni-night, covered up by its plushy little “fiddle blanky” in its case.
Best 35 bucks I ever spent.
Good stuff indeed!
OMG this is so funny my grand daughter is 7 months and one of her favorite toys when she comes here is a toy cell phone and some plactic keys that belong to my son 28 years ago. So I guess she likes the old and new. Thanks so much for sharing.
Holly
Isn’t it funny how we have preconceived ideas about how we want to raise our children and how it changes as time goes on. Miss you guys! Hugs to you all.
Jeanne