The Wiggles Don't Play Here Anymore

The end of the school year has finally arrived and as promised my children were given instructions to go through their toys and figure out what they want to hold on to and what they can give away. The dark haired beauty put her hands on her hips and and glared at me for having the temerity to ask her to help cut down on clutter.

All it took was one a glare and a step towards her room to spur her into action. She understands that though I may be thoroughly in love with her I am in complete control of my actions. Manipulation only takes place when the old man is willing to allow it.

And as Father's Day is around the corner it is nice to know that my glare is continuing to improve. Perhaps I'll try it on my old man and see if it works. It will be a battle of two jedi masters. Ok, who am I kidding, those icy blues of his are more effective than mine, or maybe it is that whole kabed et evecha thing. Who knows.

Anyhoo, as the kids went through their stuff they brought it over and and built a small pile of things that they said that they were happy to give away. As I looked at the pile I saw that there was a Wiggles coloring book on the top. I imagine that I must have had a wistful smile on my face. It seems like yesterday that The Wiggles were a treasured favorite.

But those days are gone, The Wiggles do not play here anymore.

Truth is that they disappeared a long time ago. So long ago that I truly have to think about how long ago it was. Her big brother was a dyed in the wool fan of the Aussies. For a while, a long while the house was consistently filled with the sounds of their songs and or videos. Sometimes I would catch myself at work singing about Fruit Salad or the Big Red Car.

And then one day he decided that he was done with them and they dropped off of his list. But the dark haired beauty has no bigger hero than her brother so she kept up the tradition...for a while. She never did want to watch the videos the way that he did. In part that was because she found Dora, a girl, far more interesting.

Still she would play their CD and dance around to their music, but that ended too. Again, I can't really say when. It just kind of fizzled out and faded away.

Now that she has graduated from preschool she is interested in big girl pursuits, this she has made clear.

Earlier tonight she asked me to open her nail polish so that she could make herself my beautiful princess. I smiled and told her that she is always my beautiful princess. She smiled and told me that she could be even more beautiful if I opened the bottle. And then for good measure she offered to draw me pretty pictures every day.

Lord help us all when she really figures out how to negotiate. Anyway, I bent over and kissed her forehead and told her to go brush her teeth. She started to try to negotiate again and I gave her a look and that ended it.

As she walked away I looked at her and thought about how big she has gotten and sighed. The Wiggles Don't Play Here Anymore.