Joy, pt. 2: The story of A and his neigh

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“Neigh! Neiiiighhhh!”, A cried, pointing repeated to his crib.

“What do you say?”

“Peeeezzzz.”

“Alright, here you go,” I say, reaching into his crib and pulling out his stuffed horse.

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A slides down my body as we walk into the house. I’m carrying my work bag, A’s daycare bag, and A’s coat, so his dismount from my hip was more of a slide then a gentle put-down. A immediately runs to the TV remote, holds it out to me, and says “Neigh? Neigh?”

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“Should we race?”

A smiles and nods his head once. He gets down on his knees, holding Moon, his white plastic horse, on the ground. Then he grins at me.

I smile back and line up Spirit, his brown plastic horse. “Ready, set, go!”

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A is currently obsessed with “neighs.” This has nothing to do with parenting for social justice (I don’t think—maybe there’s something here about horses being stereotypically associated with young girls? Haven’t thought it through.). I just want to write it down to celebrate the joy in parenting’s mundane moments! It all started a few months ago, when we found a Netflix show called “Spirit: Riding Free.” It’s definitely a show I would’ve loved as a kid. His obsession started growing when we found a stuffed horse at Ikea (that he sleeps with every night). It got even worse when he got *5* different stuffed or plastic horses for Christmas.

A’s favorite show ever, ever ever of his entire 18 month life. 

But I can feel the beginning of the end for A’s era of neighs. Don’t get me wrong—he still sleeps with his Ikea neigh every day and plays with his plastic horses daily. But he didn’t ask to watch his Netflix show once last weekend. Since, at the height of his obsession he was asking for “neigh” show hourly, this has gotta mean something. He did ask for “aslan” (lion in Turkish). So, we watched Lion King for the first time this weekend. Neighs will always be his first love, but we may be at the dawn of the age of aslan.

I’ll report back in a few months, and let you know!

P.S. See my first post of joy in parenting’s small moments here.