Elmo Knows Your Name

For Christmas, my little sis got Elijah and Dylan Elmo knows your name and Pooh knows your name toys respectively. I had never heard of these toys until she told me about them. They were apparently a “hot toy” this season and they’re really fun. They have kind of a mini-computer in them and you can plug it in to your home computer and program your child’s name, birthday, age, etc. Every time your child plays with their toy, the toy calls them by name and knows things they like. Both Dylan and Lij get a real kick out of their respective “friends” calling them by name.

The toys also serve as, from what I can tell, a pre-school PDA. You can program the doll to be aware of your child’s schedule – when they get up, eat breakfast, nap, eat a snack, etc. The doll will then “announce” the activity when it’s time to do it. (“Elmo’s hungry. Elmo loves cereal. Elijah loves cereal too!” at 8am, for example). Again, this feature is a big hit with the boys.

However, Alexander and I have taken to turning the toys off when the kids are not playing with them. It’s a little frustrating, after all, to finally get Dylan down for a nap only to have Pooh Bear announce – in the sleeping child’s room – that he’s tired and wants to take a nap with Dylan. Thank you, Pooh. But Mama had already taken care napping Dylan and now you’ve woken him up!

Dylan doesn’t seem to have problems with our let’s turn off the doll strategy. Lij, on the other hand, will press Elmo’s hand and when Elmo doesn’t respond, will yell “Uh-oh” very loudly until I unvelcro Elmo’s backside and turn him on again. Okay fine, play with your doll! I think that’s great! You never takes your doll upstairs anyway, so there’s no chance of waking Dylan. So, we’ll simply change tactics. Pooh must be turned off unless Dylan is actively playing with it. Elmo may remain on. I’m okay with that. Or at least I was until last night. Because that is when Elmo scared the tuna salad out of me.

Recently, Elmo’s internal clock has been a bit off. Usually he’s silent from 7pm to 7am, because he knows that during those hours – roughly – Lij is sleeping. But something’s upset Elmo’s clock and now he “wakes up” closer to noon and doesn’t go to bed until really late. So back to last night…

Alexander and I got the kids to bed and decided to play a nice, quiet, competitive-free game before turning in for the night. I can say competitive-free because at basically every game we’ve ever played since getting married Alexander’s kicked my trash. So, games are no longer competitive. We just know he’s going to win. But still we keep playing. Ah, the joys of marriage.

So, we were in the middle of the game, at a moment when all was silent as we raced the timer to come up with words. We were both focused. I felt that this might be the round. I might actually beat my husband. For once. And then it happened. Elmo’s hungry. Elmo loves milk. Elijah loves milk too. That high-pitched, squeaky, computerized voice pierced the silent night like a shotgun. I think I may have screamed. I told you - it really did scare the tuna salad out of me. Alexander too. He mumbled something about needing to turn “that thing” off. I went through several deep breathing exercises before my heartbeat returned to normal. We had to scratch that round and start again. I did not beat Alexander last night. Even once.

Then this morning, when I finally remembered and got around to turning “that thing” off, Lij picked it up five minutes later, squeezed it’s hand and then yelled “Uh-oh” very loudly until I was forced to unvelcro Elmo’s backside and turn “that thing” back on again. Elmo makes a wonderful monster!

P.S. To my little sis: If you’re reading this, we really do love the toys. Seriously. And the boys love them. And we’ll love them even more once we re-program them to go to sleep when the boys do and stop scaring the tuna salad out of us poor, unsuspecting adults.