Tiger

Amelia calls Tigger "Tiger". Not until she started doing this, did I even realize that Tigger was tiger with an extra 'g'. Duh, you may say, but Pooh and Tigger didn't factor into my childhood much. I had a Pooh crib mobile, which my daughter also used, and I could recognize the characters and maybe read a story or two, but that's it.

I mentioned the Tigger/tiger epiphany in the church nursery this past Sunday and the teenage girl there pipes up, "Oh, yeah, he's a tiger, T-I-double G grrr!" and it immediately hit me ... videos. There were no videos and VCRs until I was a teenager. Nor microwaves in people's kitchens (although probably in institutions). I have become my grandmother.

I used to think my maternal grandmother had it pretty neat. She was born in 1905 and had seen so many changes. Now that I've seen first-hand that full-grown teenagers have no idea what it's like to not have a slew of videos as childhood entertainment, I feel I've reached that place already because I can tick off a number of items I've used personally (electric typewriter with carbon paper, for example) that they will never know, and I feel old.

In the picture Amelia is using the rocking chair from my childhood. In a phone conversation with my dad in early September, he had mentioned it for some reason. Now that it has become her new favorite toy this past week - even though it's been in our living room since before she was born, and she has used it infrequently prior to now - I wish I could share the pictures with him, too, and the videos of her rocking in it while laughing. Of course, there will continue to be lots of things that will make me wish he was still here.

And on the potty training front: we had another successful sit this evening before bed. Same scenario, she hangs out with a book; I go away. Several minutes later she comes running out and I go in just as her butt sits back down. I congratulate her and she says, "Ten more minutes!"