children's show theology:: entry 02

this week’s preschool obsession is little einsteins-





and somehow it has turned into my obsession too. little einsteins is on the Disney channel in the morning- its associated with baby einstein, and it features a team of kids doing missions through art and classical music with their friend, rocket.


in the past, jane has been mildly interested in this show, but lately, its all she can talk about. she walks around singing the theme song and doing hand motions from the show. a couple of weeks ago, we bought a little einsteins book. it quickly went into her rotation of favorite books. so I decided to look for a little einsteins toy. so friday morning we went to the mall to find a rocket toy. they have this one at target that is pretty cool, but its really big and a little expensive.





we went over to disney store, but then went back to target to get the figures from the show. they were a total hit. she takes them to the dinner table, to the tub, she would sleep with them if we didn’t take them away. I often hear her having dramatic adventures with the little einsteins saying things like, “oh no! what will we do?! we need more power!”


so a couple of days later, I went to take it up a notch and look for a rocket. we went to target and saw the submarine version of rocket, we went to both disney stores and dug through their stuffed animal pits- I found a couple of children hiding in there, but no rocket.
finally, we went back to target and got the submarine rocket. again, total hit. it went in the bath, to the dinner table, and all around the house. our white bed has now become a place for rocket to have a snow adventure, and a blue blanket is for rocket to go into the ocean. jane loves rocket so much that she even took a nap (!!!) with rocket!





on the show, rocket has all of these features: he has a “look and listen scope” and a “grab-nabber.” the grab-nabber is a robotic hand that pops out of him to grab things. jane often has adventures where she says, “rocket! use your grab-nabber to pick it up!”
so- last night we went looking for a grab-nabber. I figured that some plastic salad tongs would do the trick. so we went to lucky’s, then the dollar store, then to diddams, then to bed bath and beyond. we never did find red salad tongs, but we found some clear ones. I took them out of the package and jane said, “a GRAB-NABBER!” and played with it all night; picking up random things with salad tongs and imagining she was a rocket.


so yeah- her obsession has somehow turned into mine. I almost drove to capitola today to get another toy, but I figured that she’s having so much fun with the ones she has, why mess with it? every time I call home I can hear jane in the background saying things like, “rocket! what are we going to do?! oh no! we need to get out of this snow!”


all of this reminds me of stories that my mom used to tell me of her driving all over town to buy a star wars toy for me and then enjoying my reaction to receiving the gift and enjoying hearing me play with it. sure, I buy these things for jane and for her enjoyment, but it brings me a lot of joy to watch her play and see her get excited and use her imagination.


jesus said something that seems to fit into all of this:
“If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (matthew 7:11)
funny thing is, jane didn’t even ask for any of this! I just thought she would enjoy it so I searched for it, paid for it, and then presented it to her- and her joy overflowed to me. I wonder if God not only gives us what we ask for, but what we didn’t ask for, all because He knew that we would love it?