There are lots of reasons to have children.  There must be, considering how we humans have kept this trend going for as long as anyone can remember.  We seem determined to complicate our lives, despite the fact that this endeavor is expensive and exhausting.  

I mean, sure, there’s all the obvious reasons…they’re cute and sweet and they supposedly love us unconditionally.  But I’ve come to the recent conclusion that we derive ultimate pleasure from the fact that they look and act like us…in miniature.   And it’s a lark.  

With the influx of fresh new members of late, this hobby of spotting each other’s traits in the kids has become a favored family pastime of ours. An untold amount of text threads, photos and videos are devoted to chronicling and discussing who looks like who, acts like who, sounds like who.  Who has whose hair, who has whose eyes, who has whose attitude, intellect or grit.  I’ve started to understand what people mean when they say, “Grandchildren are a gift!”   I’ve gotten almost every member of my family boomeranged back to me in one form or another.  

Including myself. 

I certainly brought home the receipts after my recent President’s Day outing with my two oldest grandchildren.   The kids had the day off of school, but their parents had to work, so who better to entertain the little tykes than their perpetually unemployed grandmother? 

I picked them up, took them to as fancy a restaurant as is prudent to take small children, and then had the brilliant idea that we should jaunt on over to Build-a-Bear at the local mall and create a bear for their baby brother, who was getting tubes put in his ears the next day.  I announced my plan at lunch.  

“Have y’all ever heard of this place called Build-A-Bear where instead of merely BUYING a stuffed animal, children can actually MAKE a stuffed animal?  Like stuff it and everything?”

In hindsight, my timing was atrocious. Our waiter had just set our meal on the table.  Luke, 6, sensitive to the never-subtle nuances of his 4 year old sister’s every mood swing, started cramming his chicken tenders in his mouth at record speed, while simultaneously flagging down our waiter for a couple of to-go boxes.  Meanwhile, Anna’s eyes were rolling back in her head, she started flailing about in the booth and it seemed as though she might have a mini coronary right there on the spot.  

I had barely paid our check before Luke had managed to strap not only himself, but his sister into their car seats.  As we drove to the mall, I trained my rearview mirror on their faces and firmly admonished – we were only making ONE BEAR!  For the baby.  Because HE WAS THE ONLY ONE HAVING SURGERY!

They both nodded in cherubic complicity.  This seemed to make perfect sense to them.  These two are obsessed with their baby brother and were delighted by the prospect of customizing a bear for him.  And I was pretty tickled with myself for coming up with this selfless project…having fun together AND building character all in one afternoon.

Everything was going according to plan…

…All up until we walked into the dazzling magnificence that is the Build-A-Bear Industrial Complex.  If you’ve never been there, it’s a stuffed animal lover’s utopian  fantasy.   And, wouldn’t you know it, my Anna, is a stuffed animal lover.  We were surrounded by bins and bins of limp, furry creatures just waiting to be brought to life by a small child.  Think Taxidermy-For-Tots, only slightly more hygienic.   

Anna aggressively picked up a colorful drooping pelt and shouted loudly, capturing the attention of all the other patrons, “When I have MY surgery, I’m getting THIS one!”  

‘Oh no,’ I thought to myself, ‘She’s gonna march straight home to her parents and demand a hysterectomy or something!’

But I managed to distract her into selecting a bear for the baby.  I got everything back on track – a swell time was being had – all up until we got to the station where you record your little voice into a little message on a little chip that goes magically into the bear’s little paw.  

That’s when she lost it.  She flipped her *$&@#.   

Before I describe the anarchy that unfolded next, allow me a brief aside to describe the females in our family.  We are some of the most delightful gals you’d ever want to know.  We can breathe life into your parties, your galas, your weddings, your whatnot.  We’re the first on the dance floor and the last off.  We will dominate the dreary air space with a witty or intelligent take on any topic from breastfeeding to politics.  In short, we are more fun than a barrel of monkeys.  Unless we are triggered by some form of perceived injustice.  And, while that may take a lot, when we see ourselves spiral, we shoot off warning flares.  But if the warnings are missed…All the king’s horses and all the king’s men…if you know what I mean…

To be fair, Anna shot off a warning flair.  I just dismissed it.  

Cue the chaos:

“It’s not fair! I never get to have surgery!  Everyone in my family gets to have surgery ‘cept me!”

“Anna, sweetheart, that’s not true, NO ONE in your family has EVER had surgery before!”

One more quick mention about the girls in our family…when we decide to mount a case, we get our duckies all lined up in one big irrefutable row.  We certainly were at an inflection point.  And what a schmuck I was, kneeling down, thinking I’m going to match her energy by telling her who HAS and HASN’T had surgery in her very own family…

“Uh-huh,” she insisted, “Luke got to have HIS ears done!  Now Baby Caleb’s getting HIS ears done! And Mommy got all those babies taken out of her body and Bella…”

She trailed off when she got to their beloved dog, Bella, who actually did have a surgery about a year ago, but neither of us could recall what kind, but honestly, it didn’t matter at this point.  

“Aaaannnnddddd…”  said scanning my face intently…

I got nervous.  She had just accurately catalogued her older brother’s tube surgery that happened before she was even born, her mother’s pregnancies and miscarriages AND a pet surgery! This child was not playing around.  She had more family medical history than an EOB from Blue Cross/Blue Shield.   Call me paranoid, but I knew I had mere seconds before she shared my elective procedures with the entire Build-a-Bear community.  Hippa be damned.  

I thrust that rainbow bear at her, the one she had been eyeing earlier…

“How about this one?” I suggested.  “Do you want this one? Look how cute he is!  I think he loves you!”

An hour or so later, we walked out of that place with a greater population of bears than Yellowstone.  I was broke and exhausted after being bested by a smaller version of myself.   

Word to the wise:  Build-a-Bear is not the place to go to build character.  It’s a place to go to build bears. Just bears.  Many bears.  

Later that afternoon, when I dropped them off, I lingered for a bit chatting with their parents.  When I went to tell the kids goodbye, I noticed neither brother had possession of their bear.  All the bears were in Anna’s room in Anna’s custody.  They were lined up in her bed, where she was feeding them and fiercely scolding them – admonishing them to, “straighten up!” and “behave!”  Or else.   

I couldn’t wait to hop on our family group text and brag about how Anna has inherited my penchant for strictness with her charges.  She doesn’t put up with anything.

That’s what she got from me.