Puppet and Puppet, Too

I don’t like my kids being on screens. Even though my 6 year old daughter E and 4 year old son C can understand tv shows and movies on Disney+, PBS Kids, and other platforms, I want them to be present as much as possible. This is very difficult when I have little to no energy.

When I was on my trip with them, we were in the home stretch and I was getting work out by them. C wanted to have his tablet and it would have been the easy route to take. I could have an hour break and he would be entertained. My concern was that he would have his tablet for a few hours on the flight the next day and I wanted to try to limit his exposure so it would better entertain him then. I decided to say no to his request and challenged him to think of something we all could do.

E was wanting her tablet and that was her idea also. C was out of ideas because at my parents’ house, there weren’t many toys for them to play with. I suggested that they both use their imagination to play and they wanted me to demonstrate. Challenge accepted.

I decided to use my hands to create a puppet show and needed to come up with a script, so a hit play was birthed at that moment. The play was titled Puppet and Puppetoo. It went something like this:

Puppet - Hi my name is Puppet.

Puppetoo - Hi my name is Puppetoo.

Puppet - Huh, that’s my name. Your name can’t be Puppet.

Puppetoo - It’s not. I said my name was Puppetoo.

Puppet - Stop saying that. Puppet is my name!…!!!!!

There were varying degree of frustrations from Puppet because of the miscommunication. Puppetoo sounds like Puppet, Too, which was very triggering for a puppet being the only one named Puppet. Hope you are following along with me still.

My kids were cracking up with laughter as the frustration level built with Puppet. Each scenario got crazier and at the end, luckily they cleared up the communication issue. Crisis averted. C was laughing so hard and enjoying himself so much that he ended up reciting a variation of the hit play to my brother’s friends during dinner. I’m not sure they all understood the story since C may have missed some of the subtler points, but he did do a terrific job of his adaptation of the play.

Overall, I’m happy that I spent those moments entertaining the kids and making a memory with them. It may be a small memory, but I hope that many of those small memories somehow stick with them. That’s what I love about being a dad.