Gulf Coast Family

I’m pretty sure that I have been a bookworm for my entire life. I can remember as a 4-year-old, insisting that my mom read the story Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel every single time we went to our doctor’s office. Then when I learned to read, I loved reading Dr. Seuss books (Fox in Socks was my favorite) and Disney fairy tales. Soon, I moved on to Little House books and Nancy Drew mysteries. And my parents have a cassette tape proving that I liked to “read” even before I can remember doing so – I had the entire story of A Runaway Pancake memorized before I turned two, and I used to quote it to my dad regularly.

“If you get a pillow pet, you get to go to Grandma’s house!”

Sometimes I still get surprised at how readily my children believe everything they see on TV – even the commercials. Of course, when I think about it, I remember that I was the same way when I was young – I was very easily convinced that Cocoa Pebbles would taste great (they didn’t really) or that the newest toy would provide hours and hours of endless fun. When I was in upper elementary school, I desperately wanted a “My Little Pony” toy, only to discover after a few weeks that the only thing you could do with that silly thing was brush its hair!

A few weeks ago, my six-year-old daughter Hanna started regularly telling us and her younger sister Haylee how great pillow pets are. “Pillow pets are so soft and cuddly.” “Pillow pets are so cute and huggable.” And my favorite, “If you get a pillow pet, you get to go to Grandma’s house!” At that point, I hadn’t seen the commercial yet, but once I did, I had to laugh out loud (if you haven’t seen it, you can find it on YouTube – then you’ll know why I laughed)!

Now Haylee just started pre-kindergarten for the first time, and she has to take a nap at school. We decided that the fascination with pillow pets presented us with a good opportunity to “bribe” her to be good during naptime, since she hasn’t ever been required to take a nap at any certain time before. So we went online and let her pick out her very own pillow pet, telling her that she would get to use it at school for naptime. We also let Hanna pick one out, since the whole thing originated with her anyway. And Daniel, our nine-year-old wanted one too. So since additional ones are cheaper, especially when you consider shipping, we had three brand new pillow pets – a ladybug, a panda bear, and a bumblebee – arrive at our house a few weeks ago.

The excitement was electrifying – none of them would let those pillow pets out of their sight for the rest of the day (or to this day for that matter). And that night, just before bedtime, I got the best quote of all when Hanna said, “Mommy, the commercial was right! ‘Just one hug, and you’ll fall in love with your pillow pet forever!’” And so far, that part of the commercial has actually proven to be correct.

Until next time,

Jennifer