Maybe it's their cute little twinkly eyes, or their wonderfully brushable hair, or those adorable little "cutie marks" on their hips. Whatever it is that makes me so addicted to these little rainbow colored forms of molded plastic, I can't kick the habit. Even as an adult, walking through the pony aisle at the toy store is a dangerous thing for me:
MLP Addict Karisa: Look at this one! It's from that Super Hero Pony episode!
Mature Adult Karisa: Yes, yes she is.
MLP Addict Karisa: She's the bad guy! And!!!! Look at Spike! He's SOOOOO little and cute...with a super hero mask!!!
Mature Adult Karisa: He is awfully cute.....but NO! We don't need him....
MLP Addict Karisa: SHE'S ON CLEARANCE!!!! 50% off!
Mature Adult Karisa: But we have literally a hundred ponies already...... What?! CLEARANCE??!!!
After spending a few days at my mom's house sorting through my worldly possessions and deciding what childhood memorabilia made the cut to transition to my own home, it's finally started to sink in just how many My Little Ponies I have accumulated over the years. It's no joke that my room as a kid (and even into my teen years, if I'm being honest...) looked a lot like this:
Ponies on top of ponies, baby ponies and glittery ponies and rainbow ponies and sea ponies and boy ponies and ponies with braids and hats and rhinestones for eyes.... After years at college, the ponies had been delegated to a large blue Rubbermaid tub (and when I say large, I mean LARGE...like the size normal people store winter coats in), and when it was time to trek home from our time at my mom's, we threw them into a bag (a MLP duffle bag....) to bring them back home so Ollie could play with them.
Not all of them fit into the duffle bag. And the giant pony stable, the hat boutique, the perfume spa, the ice cream shop shoe....these certainly didn't fit either. Which means there is a huge bag of MLP at my house...and probably 20 more still at my mom's, sitting in the giant blue Rubbermaid along with all of the play sets just waiting for the next trip North so they can be reunited with their MLP friends.
Why couldn't I just give them away you ask? After living 10+ years without these little plastic beauties, why do I need them back? Because I am a My Little Pony addict, remember?
And it must be genetic because Ollie has it too.
On the three hour drive home, Mature Adult Karisa had time to consider some things, and it occurred to her that we definitely have NO room at our home for a collection of retro ponies, even if they are adorable and glittery. (Score one for Mature Adult Karisa.) So when we arrived, I set Ollie to the task of sorting through the ponies to decide which ones she wanted to keep and which ones she knew she wouldn't play with.
She found TWO to give away.
TWO.
Out of probably 35 ponies, she could only part with TWO. And why?
Because we are MLP junkies, that's why. Completely, totally addicted, just waiting for our next fix whether it's in the toy aisle at Target or the basement of Nonnie's house...WE NEED PONIES!!!! MORE PONIES!!!! ALL THE PONIES!!!!
......Oh. .....My. .......Gosh.
This week, we went (sans kids) to a Cubs game at Wrigley, my husband's first trip to The Friendly Confines. Taking the hubs to the game got me thinking about my own trips to Wrigley - the night game during the homerun race between Sosa and McGuire when I missed Sosa's homerun because I was at the concession stand getting a pretzel... the game when we got the Cracker Jack hat at the give away tent... the time we stood outside the players' entrance and got our hats signed by some rookie (who turned out to be pretty unimportant in terms of baseball but made for a great memory)... the time the bird pooped on my head and my friend, Mark, called me "Poopy Head" for the entire rest of the day...
And then I started thinking about the ponies.
That purple one, that unicorn with the yellow hair.....why was she important again? The glittery one with the rocket on her hip....what was so special about her? That flutter pony with the bright yellow (and tangled) hair....the one I ruined in the bathtub....why did I keep her all these years?
Out of the probably 35 ponies, could I remember a significant detail about any of them?
Not really.
And as I look around at my own house right now, I'm starting to realize something. Of all these toys the kids have - the dolls and ponies and dragons and hot wheels and DVDs and puzzles - what kinds of memories have we been making? Will they look back at their piles of things twenty years from now and feel like me......overwhelmed......nostalgic.....and slightly guilty about not wanting to keep everything my parents so kindly bought for me in my youth?
Spending time in the gridlock traffic after the Cubs game (which they won 12-1, btw...), Jonathan and I started talking about all the things that we still wanted to do: see the Grand Canyon, take the kids to Wrigley, visit both oceans, own a giant, furry dog named Captain Frederick Pabst (who, Jonathan claims, will probably eat the cat...), spend a week at Disney World...
There are so many things that we want to do, so many memories that we want to make, and my addiction to small plastic ponies (and his addiction to random DVDs!) isn't helping us get there. No matter how cute they are and how fun they seem on Christmas morning or after a long morning grocery shopping, tiny trinkets aren't making lasting memories that any of us will look back on fondly. ("Oh hey!!Remember when you bought me this Hot Wheels car? It must have been Saturday July 23 and we were shopping for groceries at Meijer... Man, mom, that was an AWESOME day....")
So, I'm sorry, My Little Pony. Our days together are over. Instead of dropping another $8.50 on some fantastic rainbow-colored pony pack, I'm going to sock that cash away and save it for something more memorable.
The kids and I discussed it, and they're on board for less toys and more trips.....at least, they say that today, with Christmas morning a solid 5 months away! But I'm really hoping that we can all subscribe to the idea that less is more - less toys, less movies, less stuff....and more time (and space!) to enjoy the things that are really important.
Like Sunny riding on a giant furry dog named Captain Frederick Pabst as he chases poor Tug all through the house....
No comments:
Post a Comment