And Then There's Dad

The Good Old Days

by Gary Drevitch

It started innocently enough: When I plowed deep into the kids’ closet to pull out their old baby toys, we all enjoyed reminiscing about which ones were their favorites, and how much they used to play with them. Some toys they remembered loving. Some, surprisingly, they had forgotten. My son asked me to demonstrate how he used to put the top of a soft stacking toy on his head in that special, cute way. Then he started doing it, over and over: “Daddy, is this what I did when I was a baby?” he would ask, as he batted the chicken-head around, all the while making nonsense baby noises. Then I reunited my daughter with her beloved toddler-era four-piece puzzles. You know the kind – where there’s an animal piece, and then an animal-shaped hole in the puzzle, painted to match the piece? Not so challenging for the average four-year-old. But she insisted on doing the puzzles herself to see how fast she could do them. Then she did them again. Then my son grabbed his stopwatch and challenged her to a race. Then they raced, he won, and they fought. Finally, back to acting their age.