It is 1983. I am six years old, and like every other girl in America, all I want out of life is a Cabbage Patch Doll. I want her round head, adorable dimples, and signatured butt to be mine all mine. And like every other suburban parent, my folks make it happen for either my birthday or Christmas that year. Hallelujah! My kid life is complete! Her name is Dorena Monica. Dor-eeeee-na, how beautiful to my six-year-old ears! I could not have chosen a more lovely name if I’d tried.
But my brothers, they had a great idea for a better name.
“Doofus”.
That’s right, the joy of parenting Dorena Monica was pretty much instantly dulled for me by my brothers calling her “Doofus” whenever they got the opportunity. I am sure my indignant shrieks of displeasure were music to their ears. I should have known this would happen, as for the past two years of my life they’d been deriving great pleasure from shoving my favorite stuffed animal’s (Bob the Bear) head down into his body repeatedly. When I’d regain possession of Bob, and pull his head back out of his body, there would be not stuffing left in his head, and I’d have to painstakingly work the stuffing from his belly to his head so it wouldn’t just flop there like he’d had a stroke.
I’m getting an anxiety attack just thinking about it!
And I have a point. The point is, for a long time, I have thought my parents were a little lax when it came to defending their precious baby girl against those monsters they had previously spawned. I mean, honestly the most I can remember being said on the subject was “Well if you don’t cry about it they won’t do it anymore.” Seriously!? They just stuffed my bear’s HEAD into it’s BODY and you don’t want me to CRY about it! I’m four years old, you want me to be STOIC!??
Ok, again, I have a point. The point is, I have always believed that although every parent makes mistakes, my parents did about 99% of things right.
And last night, when Joshua and Sophie were screaming at each other over whose turn it was on the computer, and I told them I was not going to fuss about it with them and they needed to work it out themselves, I had a light bulb moment.
Sibling arguments are a pain in the butt to resolve. And I am not all interested in being a referee. No wonder my mom just let Andy smack me around (while Charles watched)! I guess she got that one right, too.
