Soapbox

Playing Games

So I’ve got this kid…and it’s inconceivable to me how much he has grown in such a short time. I came across an old picture of him as a toddler a few weeks ago, and couldn’t help feeling a little sad that I would never get to play with that cute little guy again.
So I wrote a song about that, and it’s not half bad, actually. I was rather proud of it, and when my sister came to visit the other day I played it for her.

To my amazement, Stephen burst into tears when he heard it. I talked to him, and made sure he understood that just because he was a wonderful baby, it doesn’t mean that he’s not a wonderful big kid too. He said tearfully,
“Mom, I wish I could remember when I was your baby! I don’t even remember that time you told about in the song when we pretended the box was a rocket ship, and it must have been so nice.”

I couldn’t help laughing a bit as I told him, “Stephen, as a matter of fact, that never really happened.”
“What?”
“Well, I needed something to rhyme with ‘balloon’ , and ‘flying away to the moon’ fit nicely.”
“You mean you made that up? It’s not even true?!”
“Honey, it’s a song. That’s like, well, a story with a tune. Of course I made it up. I made up the part about Grandma, too.”

He could scarcely believe it. His favorite, most sad part of the song, and it was just a lie. He doesn’t understand the concept of “fiction” yet, I guess. Since then, he doesn’t seem sad when he hears me sing it, so that’s good.
Still, I wonder if he somehow thinks less of me now, that I never played Rocket-To-The Moon with him in an old TV box.
It’s strange the things that we do, and don’t do, that have an effect on our children we never anticipated.