Welcome T–

Yesterday’s Daily Prompt:

Clothes and toys, recipes and jokes, advice and prejudice: we all have to handle all sorts of hand-me-downs every day. Tell us about some of the meaningful hand-me-downs in your life.

I totally have this one. I looked around for maybe four seconds before it hit me: Geo Genius Interactive.

Abby loves maps. One of her selections at the used book store was a huge map of Europe. You can sit this child down with an atlas and she’ll spend hours pointing out whose house is where–nevermind that it’s a London road map and most of her family is in Louisiana. She gets in the zone.

When we make trips to visit my parents, or when they make trips to visit us, there’s usually some kind of hand-me-down making the trip. One such item from last year was this:

It was originally my brother’s, the one who’s 22 now. He’d push buttons and push buttons and push buttons, and I don’t know if he ever really learned anything from the poor toy, aside from the least amount of words it will say. If you rapidly push the power button, you get “Welcome t–See you later!” I cannot possibly tell you how many times I’ve heard that.

He got bored with it, and my youngest brother took over. Again with the “Welcome t–See you later!” He wasn’t much of a geography buff either.

But Abby. We still laugh about her trying to correct my stepdad about a year ago. He was telling a story about Houma, the city in south Louisiana. Abby was practically bouncing out of her booster seat calling his name, trying to get his attention. Finally, all eyes were on her. “Did you mean Oklahoma?” She was so proud of herself.

She loves this poor little map. To pieces. Her favorite is the pronunciation of “the commonwealth of Puerto Rico.”

But we do sometimes get a little tired of hearing “Ala-ala-al-al-al-Alabama.”