lessons and observations from our week off
Dispatch to Kaeden
We took a week off work to spend time together, run a race, watch a baseball game, go outlet mall shopping, see sharks and enjoy your last week as a one-year old. Here’s what I learned.
- The terrible twos are here. I’m worried.
- 13.1 miles is not easy to run, no matter how many times you’ve done it.
- Being a two iPhone family means double the ways to play virtual puzzles, break an expensive item and drive through downtown traffic with a quiet child mesmerized by touch screens. Being a two iPhone family also means navigating through the waters of being spoiled. We’re working on that.
- Restaurants that promote Jaegermeister on tap do not have an extensive kid’s menu. Also, a Jager bomb is not something you do to other kids on the playground. It’s sole goal is to show that it’s possible to fall down the stairs while walking up. This is not something I learned on the trip, it’s just good to reiterate sometimes.
- While in line on vacation, the possibility of being behind the person returning an entire wardrobe or the person who can’t find their store rewards card but is determined to get their loyalty points increases tenfold.
- An obsession is still an obsession two hours away from home. Bring a DVD player to watch Sesame Street in the hotel room.
- A restless child in a hotel room means sleepless parents.
- Penguins are every child’s favorite aquatic animal.
- Clownfish should file a petition to officially change their name to Nemo. Thank you Pixar.
- Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds fans have a cordial rivalry. Except the guy who screamed “Cubs suck like my grandmother” at the general direction of a two-year old. Fortunately for him, my son didn’t understand. Unfortunately for his grandmother, her grandson is a tool.
- Baseball is a sacred gift, given 90 feet at a time.
- Somewhere around mile 8 of 13.1, you’ll wish time travel was invented and skip to the finish. See it through and the finish line will be so much sweeter. This is a metaphor for life.
- It is possible to love someone more and more every day. You and your mom teach me that.
Kaeden grabbed his Chicago Cubs hat on the way of the door this morning. There are very few moments I’ve been more proud of my son.
Pictured with: Cascadian Farms Organic Vanilla Chip Granola Bar
i need a growth chart because i’m a visual person.
Dispatch to Kaeden
There are several reasons why I don’t write books for a living. Any book I’d like to write, particularly about raising kids, wouldn’t get past the brainstorming stage. I couldn’t choose one singular moment to start Chapter 1 or even decide between a Prologue and Chapter 1.
I want to quote your entire life. Every action and every inaction that made us smile ever. If I choose you happy at the park, then I ignore you happy at home. If I chose the time you vomited on Mom, then I lose the scene where the emergency room staff rushed you back because of low oxygen levels.
So often, during the past few months, these moments happen back-to-back-to-back I can’t process the marvel of it. Each week has been like an era, so much happens. You fell in love with Elmo and we bought a two-disc “Best of Elmo” set. Then you went full tween and demanded every episode of Sesame Street (and SportsCenter and Duck Dynasty and Everybody Loves Raymond, for that matter) to have Ernie and unfortunately I can’t logically explain to you that Ernie’s irrational man crush on Bert makes him less popular than Elmo.
Last night, I walked into the house to find you laying on your stomach coloring. You looked so big. You have now mastered the art of persuasion and cuteness by combining “please” with the official American Sign Language form of the word. And when you finish an entire sleeve of “crackas” or cookies, you politely or sometimes not so politely say “I want another one.”
Almost two years ago, we filled out insurance and hospital paperwork. We applied for your Social Security Number and a birth certificate. Now you “play” on an iPhone constantly. And by “play”, I mean completely rearrange the application icons, tweet pictures, solve puzzles designed for four year olds and randomly say hello into the speaker like you are one of those people trying to avoid the girl scouts at the grocery store.
Having a baby doesn’t bring unadulterated pleasures without its own set of problems. Being a parent reveals a set of challenges, one after another, much like after you run a half marathon, the journey to a full marathon begins. Or how 10 minutes into post-baby-number-one-labor-and-delivery, some tool will comment “well, how about number two!”
I can’t keep up with your changes. Which is fine because that’s why they created baby books and reason number 5,472 why I am glad to live in the technology age. The problem is I can’t think too far into the future because I’m still trying to catch up with your now tendencies. The problems that come with being a parent are still better than most other problems because at least we get to smile and laugh along the way..
We live in an age in which we can, and often do, chronicle every moment of our lives via our ubiquitous cameras and journals, yet I find myself trying to write down the most perfect thing and remember the most lasting recollection of your childhood. I forget that everything you do is you. I don’t have to choose how to start off the chapter because you start every chapter by being you.
the reason headphones were made.
“Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.” Martin Luther King Jr.
The first time I thought about turning around was somewhere between two and three minutes away from our driveway. I never thought it would ever come to that.
To a child, the scariest thing my parents ever said to me was “don’t make me turn this car around.” I was intimidated and a bit prematurely embarrassed that it would ever come to that. But for the better part of my childhood, my dad yelled at soldiers most of the day and commanded every bit of respect he deserved as our dad.
My wife and had planned our weekend almost a full week in advance. On this particular Saturday afternoon, we were going new clothes shopping, grab lunch at a restaurant we rarely get a chance to eat at and get a couple scoops of ice cream on an unseasonably warm spring day.
I’ll just say first, we never do anything with Kaeden before his afternoon nap. It never seems to work out; he gets tired early, doesn’t want to sit in his stroller and we will inevitably end up in the middle of the aisle at Target when he decides his biological clock of manners expired thirty minutes earlier. We just don’t run morning errands.
But now that he’s almost two years old and eager to discover the world, we figured this day would be a surprise. This time it would be special.
The screaming started almost as soon as we said “outside.” The kid who normally can’t wait to feel the wind in his hair and get dirt in his mouth wanted to go anywhere but close to the front door. He repeatedly flung himself onto the floor, rolling around, writhing in pseudo-pain like a soccer player who just got kicked in the privates. I carried him like a football out to the car, “blankie” and orange juice in tow.
We pulled out of the driveway with screams of almost every word that he knows, “blankie,” “basketball,” “no no” and typical indistinguishable jabber which probably equal to “I hate you” in toddler speak.
All of these words and emotions began to wreck us. It’s aching, but I think “seriously it’s just a car ride.” We’ve done worse to our son with less primitive reactions. If Volkswagen released the audio tape, one would think we were subjecting him to tests of torture.
After a long workweek, I want more than anything to enjoy these errands. We offer him anything we can in the car and nothing short of letting him ride on the roof would suffice.
The wailing continues and we finally get out of the neighborhood. Everything seems teetering on the precipice of combustion. My wife is working hard to give him the world. Me, I’m worried about keeping the car on the right side of the road.
This is a contest of who will give in first, a game of parental chicken.
I don’t give up. Not yet. I once ran 10 miles with two gallons of water in my stomach ready to empty out at any moment. I can make this work. I pull into a church that moonlights as a food kitchen one night a week. Hoping love conquers the terrible twos. He and I stand in the gravel parking lot rocking back and forth much like we did when he was two months old. Actually this all feels very baby-like. He’s unable to tell us what exactly is wrong and we’re unable to figure out what to do.
Ten minutes of this and it’s time to go home.
There’s silence momentarily. Maybe he just ran out of air. Filled, he’s screaming again. But with us no longer needing to fight it, my wife and I start a conversation.
I carry him kicking and screaming back to the house. At this point, I feel sorry for the little man. He’s beyond help. If he wasn’t our child, I’d think his parents didn’t teach him manners. But he’s really not bad. He’s a generally sweet and flirtatious one year old.
I turn on Mickey Mouse and hold him tight to my chest promising to not let go until he stops crying. Four or five minutes into “Goofy’s Petting Zoo,” I could hear the air-conditioning unit kick on. It didn’t hit me that after almost thirty minutes, he stopped screaming.
We, as parents, will never be the same. The thought of him throwing a major fit lingers in the back of our mind before every car ride. But last night, he said “bye bye daddy” in the sweetest voice mankind has ever heard.
Love beats the terrible twos any day.
taking his first swing. the first of many in his life.
the thing that happens to men who have children
I never know what to do with myself when we visit one of my wife’s high school friends. I don’t know what to do with my hands or whether or not to accept a glass of water because I have a tendency to drink an entire glass in one breath and I don’t want to embarrass my wife.
I never know what to look at. I contemplate staring intently like I’m thoroughly immersed in the conversation but I worry that her husband will think I’m having a fantasy moment, which I am definitely not and only say that because I think the same thing when another guy is looking at my wife. I say a few words, usually “absolutely” or “yeah that’s what it was.” I somehow always end up looking at their DVD collection, checking off the ones I’ve seen and making snap judgments about them by the movies they own.
I have a hard time not being me. Not being able to be the whole me. But now, almost two years after becoming a father, I’m not sure who that is. The lines between me as a person and husband and me as a father are blurred. The compartmentalization of my life that I’ve worked so hard to design is falling apart and I’m not sure if I can make the distinction.
When my son was born, a little conduit was created, a secret passageway between my heart and his, a connection that surpasses the barriers of distance and verbal cues and intertwines my life with his sleep-stealing, bank-account-sucking life.
I changed. Especially the wiring of my brain. And if some part of my brain didn’t revert to fatherhood then, it did after he uttered “daddy,” the most beautiful word in the English language.
Any previous life and dreams of motocross riding were immediately blown to smithereens, and so was my individuality. I was no longer just me. I found myself thinking I’m a father first, everything else later.
When someone other than my wife has my son at an event or family gathering or even at church, I conveniently lose my identity as a person. I never know what to do in these moments either. I tend to view someone playing or feeding or talking with my child as taking away the very ground that I’m standing on; in its most literal sense and I react accordingly.
I resort to checking my cell phone for the invisible text message I thought I heard or I just find another child in my general vicinity and teach them the four-seam fastball grip. Hell, I’d change the diaper of a random child if the situation arose.
Being with him gives me the same sense of calm as kayaking and eating an endless buffet of fresh seafood. And when he’s gone, even just at daycare, my blood pressure rises hoping they let him go down the slide on the playground by himself because he doesn’t like to be helped. It’s not that I don’t or won’t trust someone else. I simply don’t know how to just sit there. Maybe my ADD plays a factor in that too.
In my efforts to be the best dad I can be, I forget to be my own person. I consider taking ten minutes out of my day to watch television in the presence of my child failing as a good dad. And not many days go by without having children’s songs and melodies stuck in my head on a constant loop and I enjoy every second of it. I forget to taste my food because I eat every meal as fast as I can because I know Kaeden will be done before us and will want to get off his chair.
Maybe this is why Ford advertises so many F-series pickup trucks when they know men with children are watching. They appeal to our rugged masculinity somehow trapped and masked by the poop smell and knowledge of Melissa & Doug toys. I assume women feel the same way, but to the world they will always have that placenta-fallopian tube-vaginal connection to be proud of.
When I was 18, I thought I’d become very rich, move to a house in Calabasas, get an eternal suntan, have a map fastened above the bed with markers to every place I’ve been and drive around a doors-off Jeep Wrangler with a golden retriever riding shotgun.
Seven years later, I’m intrinsically connected to the every moment of my son, considering buying a minivan and am excited about the possibility of having a second child. Actually, I’m elated about it. To our family, we are not pregnant, just pure speculation. I can’t say I’m disappointed that those dreams are gone. Being that rich usually requires a lot of ruthless cunning, something I don’t have and actually weren’t realistic to begin with. And after having a son, I know nothing else would have sufficed.
I think I assumed being a father itself would be the hardest part. But it’s not. At least not yet. Being a man on my own two feet is what’s tough.
big boy achievements come at a price.
It started with the simple recognition that a chair is elevated. Then it evolved to lifting his leg in hopes of gaining perspective from the hardwood summit. And slowly getting one leg after another on the chair, erstwhile shifting and balancing his weight to accommodate for cheap and unstable barstools. And subsequently falling three feet onto a linoleum floor. I debated adding this, but we’re not perfect parents and kids fall. That’s life. But last week, a week that would have special designation in our nonexistent baby book, our son eyeballed a pacifier on the bar, climbed up onto the barstool, claimed his rightful prize and slid down the side. All the while watching television playing across the room.
Suddenly he seemed big. Too big actually for a pacifier, but that’s another obstacle to tackle.
Watching a child grow up is a peculiar and turbulent form of time travel. Like if time travel wasn’t time travel at all, rather a high speed viewing of the evolution of milk from cow to cup, not skipping the unpleasantries, not pausing for commercial breaks. Time accelerates. Children are revolted by green beans and eat an entire plate two days later. Shirts that fit a month ago don’t go past their belly button today. Concepts and skills are learned but parents cannot pinpoint a measureable date when it happened.
I never see these things coming. They happen too fast. In the past few weeks, he has become a big boy. Or accomplished whatever standards I developed for big boyness. It works, lingering most of the time in complete insignificance, combining to perform a task. He can name animal sounds and run a pick and roll offense using an end table as the screen. He can tell us in recognizable jabber what he wants or show us exactly where it’s at. Raisins are in the top right cabinet. He knows where the pond is in relation to our house and if you let the front door open, he’ll start walking toward it. He says “water” anytime the substance is near, even if it’s collected sewer back up. He says “I get you” before tackling, tickling or giggling with us. He knows how to turn on an iPhone and slide the screen on and turn on one of his children-approved apps. This may actually say more about us than it does about him. And we satisfied a cranky mood one afternoon with crackers and a re-airing of the 1998 Duke-North Carolina ACC Basketball Championship game.
He can do a lot of stuff, most of which is probably not unusual for his age and I won’t say because I don’t like parents who constantly brag about their children. But I’m starting to understand the parent who has six “My Daughter is on the Honor Roll” stickers on their car.
Most of these “wow” moments invite foggy clarity on how he learned the skill. And questions on how to build from it. He knows that a cow goes moo and a monkey waves his arm, but now the next step of parenting begins. Two weeks ago, I skipped the chapters about development and learning to read about common misdiagnosis in children, but now worry creeps in that I’m not doing enough to accelerate learning. We need to provide more constant and constructive feedback. We need give him learning opportunities that enable him to get better, be smarter.
Parents have the ability to provide children the raw tools necessary to live life, for them to start sharing what they’re thinking, feeling and doing with whomever they want. And I’m not naïve enough to think he doesn’t learn stuff from his classmates at daycare or from his cousins or other children at church, but these new skills only reiterate my constant desire to be present as a dad.
Is his newfound love of basketball because I sat on the floor and shot into a 6-inch tall, Fisher Price goal when he was a newborn? Or because we brought him to his first game at 17 months? Or because he watched me play in a church basketball league for the last three months?
Last week, as he was sliding down the barstool, the tears of a grown man were very real. He melted me. Our son, not yet 2 years old, suddenly Mr. Independent, used his new skills to cling to his pacifier, a relic of his somewhat-short past. But the same thing was happening to me. I was watching him grow up right in front of my eyes, a son looking for his pacifier. Maybe I’m still clinging to whatever is left of his childhood too.
I always thought that the greatest part about parenting would be giving all of me to my children, passing my knowledge and skills to them, to be the best people they can be. I guess that starts now.
And if he ever plays basketball, this is the picture they will show at his recognition ceremony. 
death and parenthood.
“I think we like to complicate things when it is really quite simple; find what it is that makes you happy and who it is that makes you happy and you’re set. Promise.”
Parenting brings on a multitude of changes. Perceptions of responsibility change, as well as the ability to function at a high level on very little sleep, a more suppressed gag reflex and the square footage of our house being used for toy storage.
But more than those and having less disposable money in our bank account, parenting has also brought an overwhelming awareness of my mortality.
Maybe every new parent feels this way. And maybe the ones who don’t just won’t broach tough subjects like that.
When I was a kid, I thought being in college meant my life was half over. When I was in college, I thought being married would make me feel old. Then being married only made me think about having kids. Now, as a parent I can only think about what would happen when I die. What would happen to my wife? What would happen to my son? The rest of my life, and subsequent end, suddenly seems closer at hand.
In the middle of the night or while cooking dinner or in the middle of workday, death creeps in my mind. I think about the moments we could never share. I’ve always known that the greatest joys of my life will revolve around witnessing what happens to my children. Dropping them off at school for the first time. Elementary school plays. Little League walk-off homeruns. First middle school party. First kiss that they won’t tell us about but we know because they are grinning from ear to ear.
Parenting is a causa sui, a life project that doesn’t end when parents pass away. A wave that builds, approaches, ascends and crashes, never getting to see the stunning swell it helped build.
The thought of mortality is not a shortcoming or a hindrance and not necessarily dreary. It spurs recognition in myself to look beyond where I am now and dwell in activities that make my family happy. The thoughts have happened as a result of the love we have, not in spite of it.
Just like learning to live with other changes, this helps me to reclaim my own narrative. Parent the way we want, live the life as I want and push aside any expectations or fears. Embracing my mortality is not something I want to do. As a man of faith and a believer in Jesus Christ, I know that death is not the end of our journey. But I am scared of leaving my wife, leaving my son and the possibility of ever not being around to see them go through life’s excitement and problems.
But it’s made me eager to experience life, teach what I can and show our son how thrilling, astonishing, intense, tragic, amusing and deep it can be. That doesn’t mean waking up at 3 a.m. to a screaming kid is any more fun or exhilarating, but it’s become just a little bit more tolerable.
when a movie review is a life review.
Dispatch to Kaeden
This weekend, I persuaded your mom to watch Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, a movie that she clearly had no intention of ever watching. Persuaded is not really the right word, rather rented it without her knowledge and then casually brought it up halfway through the day.
Midnight in Paris is a love letter to Paris about the allure of the past, of times and places that are stuck in our imagination from history. In the movie, the main character confronts nostalgia and his purpose, complaining that he was born “at the wrong time, into the wrong era.”
I can always tell how your Mom feels about a movie by the amount of time she moves during the film, excluding bathroom and pretzel breaks. If she squirms four or less times, it’s a keeper. To compare, we also watched the 1967 Academy Award-winning “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” this weekend and she moved only once to look up an actress. During Midnight in Paris, I stopped counting after 14 and that was thirty minutes into the movie.
But me, I loved it. I’d watch it again tonight and again tomorrow night. Because as my wife put it ever so gently, the main character is me.
I think about the past an inordinate amount. Call it romanticism or just being curious. I wish I was witness to Lewis and Clark’s expedition and was in the same room as Edward Hopper when he painted Nighthawks and spent an evening at the Ambassador Hotel. I think I would be content to live in 1920s New York, 1740s Colonial America or 1940s Paris. And if no one is home or you and Mom are taking a nap, I’ll put on some Frank Sinatra or Duke Ellington or Cole Porter and get completely lost in a fantasy world of smoky clubs and three-piece suits. I will pick up and read a 1943 issue of Life Magazine just as much as I would a current issue of People or Newsweek. Most of my favorite TV shows, movies, books are all from pre-1950 before the Internet and mass media and when, you know, the grass was supposedly greener.
And my idealism with all the architects and functionaries who shaped our lives grows exponentially with my collection of books from generations gone by. Note to self – you can tell almost anything about anyone by looking at the books they read. If you run into a person who doesn’t read either 1) run away or 2) start a relationship by buying them your favorite book.
I write letters to you for the sole purpose of explaining my feelings about parenthood on any given day with wisdom and tidbits like parenting is not always Legos and stuffed animals. Sometimes things need to be explained. And I feel the need to explain that no matter what I dream about or how my idyllic view of the past skews my perspective of the present, I’m exactly where I want to be.
The best piece of advice I can give to new parents is “be there.” Be there because you made the decision to have children so it’s your responsibility. Be there because it’s more fun experiencing it than hearing about it. Because at some point they grow up and don’t want you to chaperone their school dance anymore. But most importantly be there because it’s where we are supposed to be.
I’ll never know how I would have reacted living in a previous generation. Maybe I could have gotten on the ground floor of a monumental change in America. Or maybe I’d be doing the same thing just in a different house with a different hairstyle. And I don’t know why we are here in 2012 or where what town we’ll end up in or how many brothers and sisters you’ll have. It’s hard to look back at our growth as adults as anything less than insignificant inches that add up to a mile.
“I’m where I need to be” means there’s no place I’d rather be. Sure we wish we were closer to the ocean but if it’s between you and the ocean, you’d win every time. I’m where I need to be at the grocery store by myself with old ladies staring at me because I compare labels. I was where I was meant to be cast as Josh in my middle school rendition of Clueless. Seriously giving a stuttering teenager the lead male role in a play opposite the prettiest girl in the school does wonders for someone’s self-esteem. And though where I need to be doesn’t mean we can’t work at being better, anywhere you and your mom are is exactly where I want to be.
*Photo and street art from Morely. His art consistently challenges me.
the making of an american toddler.
“I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing - that it was all started by a mouse.” - Walt Disney
A strange thing happened to me today.
I started researching Mickey Mouse-themed birthday parties. And in a way, it shouldn’t be too strange. Millions of parents across the country every year plan Disney parties for their children who want to dress like Cinderella or swim like Little Mermaid or swashbuckle like Aladdin. Although I swore to my wife’s stomach that I would never subject any offspring to themed parties without their approval.
Googling such keywords are odd because at one point in my life, I loved Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse too and probably wanted a Mickey Mouse party. My parents grew up on Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color and Cinderella. And after a six-text message thread, my 80 year old grandmother informed me that she “went into town” to watch a few Disney films at the movie theatre.
Mickey met men who knew men who fought in World War I. He taught my grandfather, my dad and myself about shapes and dogs and steamboats and stereophonic sound. Mickey was popular during the time of Winston Churchill, Clint Eastwood, Buzz Aldrin and John Lennon. Mickey, almost born Mortimer, has been a lot of things to a lot of people. He was an enemy of the state in Nazi Germany and was used as a password for Allied forces on D-Day.
Though Walt Disney is one of my favorite people to ever walk this planet, my son’s recent love for Mickey Mouse and his entourage of clubhouse friends goes beyond any parental nudge or vicarious pleasure. He found it on his own and it stuck. He can barely remember to say Mommy, when the women who birthed him, walks into the room, but shouts Mickey when the anyone with big ears or the mouse himself is on the television screen.
Wholesome wisdom holds that it is a rite of passage and truly American for every child born after 1930 to be enriched by Mickey Mouse’s ears and Goofy’s laugh. Childhood is an entity often defined by Disneyland, Mickey Mouse and the Little Mermaid. When our son was six months old, we were already getting questions on when we were going to take a trip to Walt Disney World in Florida. In the unsettling worlds of the war-torn 1950s and the Cold War 1980s, the “sex sells” 1990s and the teetering world balance of the 2000s, Disney and Mickey Mouse remain constants.
That’s why Disney is irresistible to new parents. Very few things from my childhood are still around for my children to grow up with. Which is fine because I’d prefer my son not watch Beavis & Butthead and the Ren and Stimpy show. Disney characters tug on our heartstrings, remnants of a childhood that we didn’t know to enjoy until it was over.
And Disney offers a chance to level the playing field. My wife and I had two different childhoods. She was raised on bluegrass and sorghum and I thrived on Def Leppard and eggplant parmesan. But we both remember moments when Mickey intervened. My earliest memory is taking a picture with Mickey and Minnie at Disneyland Paris.
The undeniable power of Mickey Mouse is not about global domination (though in 2012, it probably is) but that Mickey will always find happiness, he’ll sing and dance through hard times and remind adults of everything they (we) thought was true as children. More often than not, a Disney movie or TV show is based on elements so natural it’s hard to define what exactly makes it so good - a good plot, great execution and nothing that shatters a toddler’s utopian societal worldview.
The potential impact Walt Disney and his company’s creations should never be trivialized. It may be a kid’s show, but we’ve all been moved to tears by a character’s actions, their struggle to achieve their own destiny and the Disneyified happily ever after. In Mickey’s case, images beamed from television and movie screens project a portrait of a never-ageing, omnipresent anthropomorphic legend who, once upon a magical time, showed us how to be happy.
It’s ironic that Mickey Mouse grabbed Kaeden’s attention during the most trying part of a 21-month year olds life – old enough to know what he wants, but not old enough to tell us, since Mickey was created during a frustrating time. Walt lost the copyright to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and needed a reboot; a refresher course for star cartoon characters. About the creation of Mickey, Walt wrote, “Out of the trouble and confusion stood a mocking, merry little figure. Vague and indefinite at first. But it grew and grew and grew, and finally arrived - a mouse. A romping, rollicking little mouse.”
Maybe that’s what makes him so compelling to children. And parents. Mickey embodies everything parenting and childhood can be. He transcends time and problems. I don’t have time to listen to people rant about the world crumbling at its economic center and how parents should monitor television time for toddlers. I’m trying to keep my son from throwing a half-eaten banana across the room in a fit of frustration. But I will sit down as a family and watch Mickey solve one of daily conundrums with a toolbox of Toodles. Unlike us, children of generations past may not have a closet full of Disney-branded toys to satisfy their curiosity. But we, like, them know that Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse is really all about hugs and smiles. And laughter.
