For the Love of Ponies
I just wanted to post once more about My Little Ponies, and the serious, exhaustive way they have infused our lives. As the summer draws to a close, the ponies have become vital components of each and every activity the girls engage with. Bike riding around the driveway: bikes must first be "decorated" with blind bag ponies. Building with Magna Tiles and blocks: the structures are homes, castles, and barns for ponies. Playing with tiny Playmobil stuff: the small foods are for the ponies. Coloring: they're coloring pictures of ponies. Playing on the swingset: the ponies are always on the swings or in the playhouse with them. Going to the playground: ponies accompany us. Going to the pool: ponies accompany us (though I make the ponies stay in the car). Fruit picking: ponies accompany us. Painting clam shells on the porch: the ponies have to be forcibly distanced from the paints. Reading books: reading to ponies.
The girls' love of these ponies is intense. They both know the names of every one of their own and each other's blind bag ponies, a total of 40+ ponies with names like Sugar Grape, Flower Wishes, Apple Bumpkin, Button Belle, Ribbon Heart, and Lyra Heartstrings. The ponies have personalities and talk through the girls. Their voices and observations are urgent. "MOMMY. MOMMY. MOMMY. I HAVE TO TELL YOU SOMETHING." "Yes, Lucia?" "Luckette doesn't like her name and wants to be called Bon Bon!!!"
Unlike everything else in our lives, L & G don't want the same ponies: part of the fun for them is choosing different ones. They don't like any "boy" ponies except for Cheese Sandwich (yes, that's a pony). They have names for the different styles of pony molds: there are ponies with curly hair (curly ponies), and ones with hair that kind of flips up (swoosh ponies). (Today we debated whether they'd choose "crystal swooshes" at Target.) They want to have all the ponies with them all the time. Getting out of the house is a real trick because I limit the number of ponies they can bring to two or, if I want to thrill them, three. Then there's a painstaking process of choosing which ponies get to come. Then we get in the car and spend the entire ride locked in the turmoil of dropping ponies on the floor and begging me, the driver, to fish around for them at stoplights.
Still. They've never loved anything like they love these ponies. I will continue to enable them, without hesitation.
The girls' love of these ponies is intense. They both know the names of every one of their own and each other's blind bag ponies, a total of 40+ ponies with names like Sugar Grape, Flower Wishes, Apple Bumpkin, Button Belle, Ribbon Heart, and Lyra Heartstrings. The ponies have personalities and talk through the girls. Their voices and observations are urgent. "MOMMY. MOMMY. MOMMY. I HAVE TO TELL YOU SOMETHING." "Yes, Lucia?" "Luckette doesn't like her name and wants to be called Bon Bon!!!"
Unlike everything else in our lives, L & G don't want the same ponies: part of the fun for them is choosing different ones. They don't like any "boy" ponies except for Cheese Sandwich (yes, that's a pony). They have names for the different styles of pony molds: there are ponies with curly hair (curly ponies), and ones with hair that kind of flips up (swoosh ponies). (Today we debated whether they'd choose "crystal swooshes" at Target.) They want to have all the ponies with them all the time. Getting out of the house is a real trick because I limit the number of ponies they can bring to two or, if I want to thrill them, three. Then there's a painstaking process of choosing which ponies get to come. Then we get in the car and spend the entire ride locked in the turmoil of dropping ponies on the floor and begging me, the driver, to fish around for them at stoplights.
Still. They've never loved anything like they love these ponies. I will continue to enable them, without hesitation.
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| Lucia's pony-and-tiny-eraser arrangement from today's quiet time. Note the perfect symmetry of the ponies' poses and pairings. Note also that this is only a small selection of her pony collection. |
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