Return to the mothership

Ali has discovered the plot of every story ever told.

Beam me up, mama. 

Here it is: baby misses mama, baby goes searching for mama, baby finds mama, baby is filled with joy and screaming adulation.

A twist on the plot is that sometimes baby is looking for papa. Sometimes even - gasp - mama and her papa.

Ali likes to loudly recount this plot structure during movies. TV shows. Book reading time. Etc.

Lately her parental search algorithm has bleached into the physical world. Toys must be nested with their parents.

Which is why we spent last weekend at the zoo: a baby giraffe had to be reunited with her mama.

Plastiraffe. 

There is a London restaurant called Giraffe that tolerates kids more than most London restaurants. And they give away little plastic giraffes with the smoothies.

One problem with little plastic giraffes is that they are pretty cool and thus worth fighting over with your sister. This means that little plastic giraffes are usually missing at least one leg and look a bit twitchy.

Another problem with little plastic giraffes is that they miss their mamas so very much.

And so our twitchy, three-legged plastic giraffe had to be returned to her mother unit. As an added bonus her papa was there too.

You there Mom?

The giraffe parents looked uncertain when confronted with their blue plastic offspring, even though she was offered up to them with much joy and screaming adulation.

At moments like these I am reminded that my kids see me very differently than I see myself. They seem to think I am a super-human who holds up the dome of the world.

I remember having this concept of my parents too. I know it will be replaced  with criticism, then understanding.

Which is a relief: dome-holder is an awfully hard title to live up to. And it can lead to backache.