Dear Addie,
“It takes a village.”
A phrase I’ve uttered a time or two (or ten) when life seems to be presenting obstacles at us and we have, well, no time! This week something as simple as cleaning out a cabinet, ended up with me needing help from my village.
Allow me to explain.
While summer is a time to relax and have fun, I like to keep things real, at least for a few days and have everyone chip in to clean and organize things in our lives before the upcoming school year. On this day it was a game cabinet busting at the seams that needed our attention.
Addie we all have this cabinet, even if some refuse to admit it. It houses games still in plastic wrap from years ago never touched, some used only once, others missing so many pieces you can’t even figure out how to play it or better yet “mash up” games where candy land pieces have now become monopoly real estate - points for resourcefulness there!
Well, on this particular day buried in this cabinet was a little diamond in the rough. Yes, the ever popular Wubble was uncovered. You might be thinking “why was this buried so deep in the abyss?” Easy answer, you have always been terrified of balloons, and this is basically the ultimate balloon of all balloons so tucked away it went.
This is not the first item that we didn’t experience in its real time of popularity - I mean I think the Wubble came on the scene in 2015 if I’m correct?!?! I also remember when rainbow loom came out, and Clara and Gabe could only play with it at their friends houses because you saw those tiny rubber bands as a tasty delicacy! When we did finally allow rainbow loom in our house Clara and especially Gabe went nuts! They became rainbow loom masters making anything from socks, to gloves, to earrings - you name it, they figured out how to do it!
But back to the Wubble.
Sticking to the consistency of your predictable unpredictability we thought your recent love of water balloons might have warmed you up to the idea of this giant unpopable bubble of fun?!?! With probably far too much discussion over this giant bubble between Clara, Gabe and myself whether you would like it or not - we decided to just give it a go. I mean these days your love/hate relationship with things is on your terms and perhaps whether or not you woke up on the right side of the bed!
As we opened the box and began to pump it up (with the tiny auditory sensory assault that came with it), you took off running up to your room and slammed the door!
I wouldn’t exactly say you were thrilled with the idea of all this just yet...
Why you might be asking, at this point, didn't we abandon the mission? I’m not really sure, but I think we just really thought you would like this if you gave it a chance. We continued to blow it up (big, but definitely not as big as it could go) and took it upstairs.
We knew we were going to have to proceed with baby steps here, keeping very sure we weren’t sending you into a tailspin of an epic fight or flight meltdown. Keeping all this in mind we also knew if this whole thing went sideways we could always pop it and call it a day. That option isn’t exactly the same as when your out and about and we see things you don’t like! Could you imagine seeing me walk over and popping a small child’s balloon every time one bothered you in public?? Not exactly a genius way to make friends Ad!
We knocked on your door and said “Addie we have a new ball for you!” As a side note, we choose the word “ball” carefully so you wouldn’t see it as a “balloon.” I mean lets be honest the English language is hard enough. “Wubble” wasn’t exactly a flash card identifying object word you had learned just yet.
As you opened the door we bounced it a few times like a basketball and shockingly you were immediately all in! Gabe even looked at me and said “well that went better than expected!” Something easy for a change! We’ll take it!
For the rest of the day where you went, the Wubble went. You dragged it here, there and everywhere. The bathroom, the kitchen for use as a lounging chair while you waited for “make a pizza!” in the oven. You even dragged it with you to wake me up in the middle of the night for a drink.
All was good in life until the next day when we learned the research and development crew probably needed you on the team to truly see how “unpopable” this item was. Much to your dismay it popped.
You were distraught and becoming more agitated by the minute. Normally, I would ride this out as a teachable moment, but sometimes we have to pick and choose our battles. I find no shame in this. You see Ad, we had a brand new sitter coming in less than an hour! As if being our babysitter wasn’t already like taking your chances at completing an American Ninja Warrior course, leaving you in an agitated state would’ve been like greasing up the course and taking away any soft landings of water or mats! No thanks!
My first thought was I’ll just run to Target real quick! Surely they had one! Just so you know Addie, Target has everything. You can get ingredients to make a decent meal, diapers, bug sprays, patio furniture, bath towels and windshield wipers in the same shopping experience. True story! It’s pretty much an impossible feat to just walk in for one thing, but today I only needed one thing and fast!
Knowing your mood was getting more undesirable for a quick in and out shopping experience, I decided to use the online curbside pick up! A new awesome option Target now provides, oh and it’s FREE!
I pulled out my phone, opened the app, added the Wubble to my cart, paid for it and with in seconds my order was being processed. This service right here is simply put - amazing.
Being a bit naive I thought, I have one thing, surely it’d be ready in like 10 minutes, right?!?! Wrong. Guess what Addie, it’s not an online curbside pick up for just the Menzo’s but for many others as well. It was guaranteed ready in two hours and that was about an hour and fifty minutes that I just did not have! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!
My heart was kind of racing and I was increasingly getting annoyed at the design team of this product. You know the unreasonable annoyance when your flustered kind of stuff.
After a quick thought of canceling my appointment and the new babysitter (true story), I then thought maybe I could just call target customer service so that’s what I did.
I buckled you in the car and made the call on the way. I was just going to ask if I could run up to customer service to grab it? I mean at this point the luxury of bringing it out to me surely was not going to happen, but just maybe it was sitting there up front for me to at least pick it up quickly?! Probably sounding like a crazy mama on the phone (now parked in their parking lot), I explained the whole situation to the sweet woman on the phone. Oddly enough she was talking to me like she knew exactly who we were (we may or may not go there often - sorry daddy! And we do use the customer service check out frequently because quite frankly there are no toys or candy in that aisle, so the probability was pretty favorable that she did in fact know us.)
But beside the point...
She asked if she could put me on hold to see what she could do. Within seconds she came back to ask how quickly could we be there? I don’t think she anticipated me saying I was already in the parking lot! By her “oh OK!” I could tell she was shocked and really knew now (if she didn’t already) that I was serious about needing this damn Wubble! She then instructed me to park in the curbside parking space and someone would be out soon!
No joke in less than a minute a young man came running out with a small Target bag holding your new Wubble. As I fumbled around my phone looking for the barcode they needed to scan to complete the process he said not to worry and our order was complete. With a “have a nice day” he darted off into the Target like a teenaged super hero into the dark. Red polo, khakis and all.
It was in this moment that I realized Target had just became part of our village. Score! We made it back home just in time to blow up the new Wubble.
As luck would have it my annoyance with the design team came full circle when this Wubble was defective and wouldn’t blow up past the size of a basketball! Ahhhhhhhhhh! Why?!?!?!?!
Luckily for me you didn’t seem to care and happily snatched the basketball Wubble away and ran off to play.
You were now happy again even with a defective Wubble. And even better we were back to an “un” greased warrior course for the new sitter - which for the record she flew through with flying colors!
So on a day when something burst your bubble, our village got surprisingly bigger and was there to pull us through!
Enjoy your Wubble baby!
Love,
Mom
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