Kids remember. They remember the one time you used a certain word in frustration when traffic had backed up and made you late for dance lessons. And, they love to try out that certain word at school, church, or wherever it seems applicable. That certain word, in fact, becomes their favorite word for a season. They also remember the time fifteen months ago when you accidentally put your toothpaste on their toothbrush instead of their Sesame Street toothpaste, and they will remind you of it, “Do you remember when you used the yuck-o toothpaste for me, silly?” They even remember when you burned their grilled cheese 11 months ago and so every time you ask them since burning the food, “What would you like to eat?” they are happy to remind you straight away what they don’t want and what they don’t want—ever, ever again—is burnt grilled cheese. They remember because their world is still a playground, a place where they can enjoy themselves mostly, even as they sort through how to manage all the emotions coming through them throughout the day. Who can forget the playgrounds of our lives?
Once, approximately ten months ago, I used the phrase, “I have a special idea,” after my three-year-old asked me what the plan was for the afternoon. I have a special idea, I said. Oooh, she said, Dad can you whisper it? Because everything sounds better whispered. I stopped, cupped a hand over her ear, “We are going to the zoo.” In fact, this was not a special idea because we go to the zoo, on average, three times weekly. Really, the phrase “I have a special idea” was my attempt at making myself laugh by employing some dry sarcasm in a moment when getting ready to go to the zoo and then walking around the zoo seemed numbing at best.
It’s a lovely zoo here in Detroit, but you can only look at the same exhibit so many times, even if you remind yourself that this season is so precious and your kids grow up quick and this whole thing called life is just mist, fog—here for a morning and then gone for good. Which I do often. But we have to be honest that part of being caught up in the vapor of it all is that at times, it’s boring. The playgrounds of our childhood fade into the background of our lives, only to be replaced with work, chores, duty…and part of our journey is accepting that change and learning to appreciate it and cherish it because, you know, life is short. You get one chance. We aren’t here long.
She shrieked after I told her we were going to the zoo. Like she hadn’t been every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—literally—since she was thrown into existence. It was the best afternoon ever, she said after. And on the way home, she told me something that she would continually tell me for the next ten months and, from where I’m sitting, will continue to tell me for the foreseeable future—“Dad, I want you to tell me a special idea.” Because she remembers. And life is a playground. And the thrill of the special-idea ride in this playground, it’s the best. Like, the absolute best. If we’re honest, I think we all want a loved one to come to us, on a dull afternoon, cup a hand over an open ear and whisper, “I have a special idea…”
She thinks I come equipped with these special ideas. As if they exist in some on-demand universe in the gray matter of my brain, where, mixed with my omnipotence, I can take her requests and conjure experiences ex nihilio whenever she fancies. And really, that’s flattering because it reminds me that we are still in that phase where I’m essentially a lesser god to her alongside her mother. Like, she thinks we know everything and so will sometimes ask us to retell some part of a Ghibli film we’ve watched or to get the wording right on a part of a book we’ve been reading without having the book on hand. She expects us to have google brain, AI-like recall, and when we tell her we don’t remember she laughs and says, “Oh come on, quit joking.” It’s all great. But pressurizing.
When she says, “Dad I want you to tell me a special idea,” I feel compelled to come through in a big way. Part of it is a parental impulse—you want your kids to be happy. Part of it is I’m probably competing with myself. One-upping my own ideas because I think she will disappointed if I don’t. I don’t know. Call it neurosis, but I feel as if I have to create a near holiday-esque experience to satisfy her needs. Bigger. Better. More exciting. We’ve gone to trampoline parks. Short films that are three-year-old appropriate. We’ve sledded. Gone shopping. Had tea dates with treats at a bookstore. Visited new parks. Etc.
Lately I find I’m out of special ideas. I’m exhausted. And, I almost dread the phrase—Dad, I want you to say a special idea. It’s too much pressure. I’m Jack Lemmon in Save the Tiger. Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada. The conceit of saying “special ideas” is crashing down around me, and it has felt impossible to satisfy this request.
My wife has told me a few times that when our three-year-old asks me for a special idea, it’s just a way to connect. She just wants time. She just wants to be with me. And I know thats true in my head but my heart jumps straight to fixing my daughter’s feelings or satisfying her requests.
I’m working on it.
The other night she asked me for a special idea, but this time with weepy eyes. It was late and I was tired, and so I whispered, with no enthusiasm, we could walk to the park near our home. It was all I had. She liked the special idea at first but kept asking for more when we got to the playground. We did the slides for a bit—Dad, I want you to say a special idea. We did teeter totters—Dad, special idea. Monkey bars. Spider webs. Etc. Until all that was left were swings. When I told her the only special idea I had left was swings, she told me she didn’t wanna do the swings because they were big girl swings and didn’t have two holes for her legs. Which was true but not a great excuse because she knows how to swing in big girl swings.
When she said she didn’t want to do the swings, I let my imagination stop. And I told her we could do the swings or go home. That was it. There were no more special ideas in the world. She reluctantly agreed to the big girl swings but didn’t want me to push her. She was sad she said and wanted me to swing by myself and she could swing by herself. So I did. And, she did. At one point, I was swinging high and told her I was going to the moon. But she didn’t care. She pouted—tip of her nose resting on her bottom lip. Until finally she asked me again.
Dad I want you to say a special idea.
And this time it made me mad because I didn’t have anything and it had been a long week at work, and our carpet has to be replaced soon after an incorrect installation, our plumbing is backing up into our basement, and our house is under construction, and my mother in law just moved in, and taxes are due, and doctors are concerned about this and that…and… I didn’t need three-year-old telling me to do what I couldn’t do and so setting me up to disappoint her yet again.
Ok, I said, and let my swinging feet scrape into the mulch below, we’re going home.
But something about my feet dragging cut the tension. She laughed. Dad—what are you doing silly? Don’t swing the dirt! I dragged them again on the upswing and this produced a bigger laugh. I decided to lean in—I dragged on the upswing and mimed like I had slipped on ice. She cackled. Laughed until she couldn’t breathe. Again. Again. Until we did have to go home so we could change her pants.
She kept asking on the way home if I remembered when I “swinged” the dirt with my feet like a silly goose, and if I remembered when she laughed so hard she wet her pants.
And I said I remembered.
And laughed.
Because the world was a playground again.
Garrett Mostowski is a writer and pastor in Detroit, Michigan.