Childhood Relics Make a Desperate Comeback

There comes a moment in every mom's summer where she realizes that she must either hide in the closet and chant "Serenity Now" over and over to herself, be committed to a mental institution, or come up with something brilliant and innovative enough to distract her children from the hour-long battle they have been waging over the Barbie doll with the shoes that light up.

What? Your kids don't do that? Well, humor me and pretend they do so I don't completely lose here, 'mkay? (And if you are reading this and do not have children yet, I am assuming the first paragraph of this post will serve as an excellent form of birth control.)

So, that moment arrived for me a couple of weeks ago. I had enough of the screaming, the whining, the running-through-the-house, the "she scratched me she bit me she hit me she looked at me funny." I was pretty desperate, and when Natalie asked me to put on some music so she could host an impromptu ball in the Addition (to which Michaela Byrd was not invited, it should be noted), I looked my CD player in a different light.

Does anyone know what these are?

If you guessed "colorful plastic rectangles" you would be close, but not correct.

These would be books on cassette tape from the 80s that I found in the closet of my old room at my mom's house. The books are long gone, but I thought it would be worth a try to see if the tapes still worked.

It took me a minute to explain to the girls that they were going to sit on the couch and listen to a story on a tape. Natalie, my five year old, had a hard time comprehending that she could listen to a tape without seeing any pictures on a screen or on the pages of a book like she does when I am a good mom and read to her.

I opened the cassette tape compartment (never used) on my old CD player and breathed a prayer that the tape would work. I'd hyped up the idea of a story on tape so much that I couldn't bear the thought of returning to my day job as a fight club referee in the event that the old tapes wouldn't work.

There was some creaking, a bit of static...and magically some music played an Intro and the narrator began Disney's story of "The Three Little Pigs."

The girls were mesmerized.

For several minutes, there was no talking. I washed the dishes to utter, complete, and beautiful silence. The girls stayed planted on the couch, facing the CD player for the full effect...very much like I imagine people must have done when all they had were radios.

Yeah, it was sort of weird to know that something I enjoyed as a child (much like my favorite TV shows from the 80s) could be classified as ancient relics by today's kids.

And it was a glorious moment for me to remember how great it is to be able to sit and use your imagination to color the stories in your head. The kids didn't have to sit and stare at a TV screen to get the full effect...they did just fine with what they were able to imagine.

I'm already on the lookout for more books on tape. We stuck them in a photo box that gets stashed in the media unit in the living room. Out of the way, but easily accessible to the girls.

Now to see if I can locate a Barbie Dream House, circa 1987?

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