My Fisher-Price Life

Ever reflecting on when and where our life patterns come from, I think back to my childhood and a favorite Fisher-Price toy Gran and Papaw gave me one Christmas. It was an orange, round talking box, handle on top and a bee in the middle with a little stinger you could point towards any number of critter pictures, positioned like numbers on a clock. Point to cat; pull the string, and you’d hear “The cat says “Meow”…. Point to the dog; pull the string, and it was “The dog says “Woof!” (Point to the pig, the cow, the goat...(insert critter sound here) and you start to get the picture).

Round and round the little bee would spin. You could leave him where he landed as if playing barnyard roulette. Or you could help him out and point him where you wanted and pull the string (which I did repeatedly, literally till I wore the toy out). I am now sufficiently convinced that my repeated play of those animal noises (particularly the goat cry, which was, by far, my favorite) imprinted on my little psyche to the point that it would someday become my everyday life.

As with the circle of critters then, so go my circle of critters now…as went my days as a child playing over and over these sounds, so goes the adult “me” where the pattern repeats itself again.

Imagine This As the First Face You See

My day starts with the cat, who, vocal though he is, now has a new trick up his paw. Here of late, instead of crying for food or knocking over his food bowl in the pre-dawn hours to get my attention (tricks that net him a scolding when it bolts me out of sleep). Boo’s newest trick is to get right in my face (while I’m in a dead sleep), touch his nose to mine and move his whiskers across my cheeks. (Don’t ask me where this comes from; first time it happened I nearly jumped out of my skin thinking there was a spider on my face.)

Next is Minsky (the rug rat), who, after the morning ‘tummy rub’ routine, gets carried downstairs where she sits patiently waiting for her breakfast. 

Somewhere in between (like when my feet hit the steps) the goats (and of course, big dogs)…add their two cents to the mix. The second they see bodily movement inside the house from their side of windows, it’s non-stop noise-fest of bleats and barks till every bowl is filled. (Let the record reflect, my goats are the least patient, and the noisiest, of the lot.)

Once inside the pen, it’s Rosey and TJ first; pups a close second. (Cause if we do this in reverse, the pups will eat the goat chow, making for a free-for all of butts, growls and tumbles.)

Layer by layer, round by round, my mornings crank up with a virtual feast of familiar faces, funny voices and (my own little family's) all too friendly routines, going round in a circle like that bee in my Fisher Price toy.

How could I have possibly known then, what I know now... that the animated animal noises of my childhood would one day show up -- full manifestation in my real life, big girl, Fisher Price world.