They Grow Up So Quickly

My daughter, Punkin, took another step in her journey towards becoming a young woman. It, of course, brought back memories of changing her diaper, late-night feedings, running full-bore down the hallway when she should be asleep. Ah, the memories. This is normally where a sentimental musical number would be placed. Pretty soon she'll be moving out of the house and finding a husband. The continuing journey was evident today once again. My daughter played Super Mario Bros.

While visiting Anne's folks, her mom mentioned that Punkin, now five, was getting to be a little too big for the baby toys that she had in the bedroom for the kids to play with. She made the suggestion that we should maybe break out the old Super Nintendo and see if she'd like to do that. I was all for it. After all, I really enjoy video games and quite often long for the simpler days where the controllers don't have 20 different buttons. They make me feel old and ineffectual. Super Nintendo may not be as simple as the original Nintendo that I had growing up, but it's simple enough for me. Besides which, I was able to get quite a bit of Super Nintendo time in at friends' homes when I was growing up. Then we fired it up.

It's amazing to me how quickly a little girl who has never before in her life played an actual video game system. Sure, she has this little pocket pet sort of toy that lets her care for a rabbit and play some games with it, but that's it. Once she got the hang of moving the little guy on the screen and jumping, it wasn't too long before she was able to get through one of the first levels all by herself. I cried a little bit.

She has a long way to go, of course. She still hasn't gotten the hang of the cape or being a fire guy. That will come in time, I'm sure. She just has to practice a little bit more.

The biggest surprise to me was that Anne agreed to it. Excuse me now, while I perform the sentimental musical number that I mentioned earlier.

"Is this the little girl I carried?"