Hear the song on Youtube.
My wife and I saw Kimya Dawson, as an opener for Ani DiFranco a few years ago, and we just loved her. Especially fun, was when she played a couple of songs from her children's album. I made sure to pick up a copy of "Alphabutt" when I became a Dad.
Fast forward a couple of years to my second child's first birthday. My wife was looking for a theme for his party, when she remembered how much she loved this song.
Panda theme. Easy.
She and I, with our combined baking and artistic skills, made a Panda cake. And she bought little favors for the party.
I think anyone who has at least two kids, knows how it goes when a younger sibling has a first birthday---the older sibling(s) feels entitled to take ownership of whatever loot the party brings.
Not a big deal. The one year old doesn't much care, and the 3 year old is entertained, until . . .
For party favors, my wife had found these plastic panda figurines. Only about an inch big. They came in a tube. And each one was a little different. One panda walking. One eating. Another climbing. One sleeping. Etc.
Well, I'm not sure exactly how this happened, but one night 2 weeks ago, my wife had been trying to use the bathroom, with both kids hovering around her (parenting: where privacy is a distant memory). When she had finished, and stood up, somehow (how?), somehow, the three year old dropped one of the pandas into the dirty toilet.
What to do?
Well, my wife noted to herself that our toilet has pretty lousy water pressure. So instead of reaching into the dirty john, she flushed, hoping that the heavy plastic object would just rest at the bottom of the toilet, and she could pick it out of clean(er) water.
FLUSH!
And it was gone.
Gone.
GONE!
I think we were a little unprepared for the response from our three year old.
She didn't cry this hard when the fish died. She didn't cry this hard when we went Cold Turkey with her pacifiers. She was wrecked.
To her, each of the many pandas that we had, were individuals, with distinct personalities, to go with their distinct poses. The wasn't just a random lego or block. This was a singular creature that had been lost into the vortex.
Even worse, we started to realize, after a few days, that we may have done some psychological damage.
As I wrote about (what seems like) a few years ago, she had refused to poop on the potty. And she's still refusing. She'll pee on the potty. She never has an accident. But she flat out will not poop on the potty.
Well now, she began to talk about how the panda had disappeared down the potty and was never coming back and how that was upsetting and scary.
Not good.
If we couldn't get her on the potty before, we were never getting her on it now.
We tried to tell her that the panda was probably having a very exciting adventure. We re-watched on of her favorite movies, "Ratatouille," to show her how Remy went down the pipes and ended up in Paris, having the time of his life. The panda was probably doing the same kind of thing.
It was a no go.
This past weekend, we were in Maine, in a discount store called Reny's, when my wife covertly called me to the side. She'd found a tube of pandas, just like the ones we'd gotten for our son's birthday. She bought the tube and hid it in our suitcase.
The evening after I had gone into the backyard with a flashlight, to usher our cat inside for the evening. My wife seized the opportunity.
She had me hold my daughter and poke around the yard for a minute, while she worked in the shadows. And then she suggested to our daughter that they look around a certain dark part of the yard, together.
I stepped inside and waited.
Oh, the look on her face!
When she came in, she was beaming. Shaking with excitement and happiness.
She held a little panda in her hand, like it was a diamond.
My wife was near tears herself, with a huge, proud-parent smile on her face. "Tell Daddy who we found. He's not going to believe it."
My three year old could barely get the words out.
"Daddy! We found him! He came back from his adventure! You won't believe it!"
"What is it, honey?" I said, playing along.
She held it up, high above her head.
"My panda came back! And you won't believe it! He came back smaller! He shrunk after going down the potty!"
Well, it wasn't a CIA level operation, but we'll call it a success.
From the sewer scene from Ratatouille.
See the video on Youtube.
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