Yes, We Have a Theme

Although the theme for the bug’s room should probably be “nowhere close to finished, get your ass in gear, lazies” it is actually children’s books and ABC’s. There’s nothing I love more than books, especially the ones I read as a kid, and I can’t wait to pass that onto my child, so we’re starting early. There’s ABC’s on the crib bedding and the light switch cover and we’ve got some wooden blocks in a jar and a Goodnight Moon poster for the wall and we’ve got a stuffed Madeline and a stuffed Paddington Bear and the Very Hungry Caterpillar and the Goodnight Moon bunny. But no matter how hard I looked I couldn’t find Babar anywhere, the Babar market in this country has dried up, but after all Babar IS from France, so he might not want to spend a lot of time slumming here in America, especially with our current international reputation and all.

Right before my mom made her most recent trip to France I asked her to keep her eye out for Babar and see what she could find, and that’s how she came to spend a whole day in a toy store somewhere in some small french town choosing a Babar from one of many many many varieties on display. She called me from the store and told me all about animatronic Babar and the interactive Babar and Celestes and all the other crazy Babars on offering. Over all the toy noises and the jabbering away in French going on in the background my mom asked me if maybe I wanted the talking Babar, and because I hate noise and I've ordered one of those noise free children and I’m therefore generally a huge hater of toys that make noise, I immediately said no, but then my mom did the right thing and put talking Babar on the phone, and it was truly the best thing I’ve ever heard. It sounded like nothing so much as the MOST POMPOUS French man you’ve ever heard, lecturing you condescendingly on something you have clearly fucked up very very badly. I loved it, every pompous and truly hilarious minute of it, as my mom clearly knew that I would. Talking Babar was tres awesome.

Two days later my mom emailed me a short note from her Blackberry to say that her luggage and the package containing Talking Babar were the first items safely off the baggage carousel in Ohare, and how relieved she was that her luggage had made it safely because she had barely made her flight. I was happy for her and all that because no one likes losing luggage, but I think this is one of those times when it’s ok to revise what you know because another way makes a nicer story. Instead of Babar spitting his way out of the Ohare baggage carousel in a cardboard box, I like to think of my mother, sitting in her window seat on the plane, wending her way across the Atlantic, towards home, towards her grandson, with Talking Babar on her lap, safe.