Vitamin Bliss

It doesn't take much to make bliss ... when you're two.

Today, it was a simple stuffed costume. A Spider Man costume. This costume, in all its lumpy glory, spent most of the day lounging across the stacked bales of hay at Santa Fe's annual Pumpkin Festival. This costume (hereafter referred to as Pseudo Spider Man, or PSM) caught the attention of my two-year-old as she puttered around Toddler Land at the festival, and she pointed and squealed appropriately.

"Shpidoh Man!" She lisped. "Shpidoh Man!"

With no thought as to whether or not this apparaition in blue flannel might be friend or foe, my daughter made a beeline for his nearest appendage (an arm) and lovingly yanked him from his perch. Then she wrapped her chubby arms around his chest and gave him a genuine, full-frontal hug.

She was beaming. I didn't know whether to laugh or to groan. I had tried so valiantly to keep my kids free from the influences of the media, and here she was, standing in an awkward embrace with a poor imitation of a fictionalized character from TV - a character, mind you, she'd never actually seen on TV to begin with.

"Shpidoh Man wants a wide!" My daughter announced after a brief pause. She'd been toodling around on a wooden bug with wheels, and now she dragged PSM the several feet toward her conveyance. Generously, she shared - hoisting him onto the contraption with great effort. Carefully, she chaperoned - pushing him across the uneven ground. Pleadingly, she looked up at me as first one, then both of his unseemly legs began dragging behind his little car.

"Help, Mommy?"

I couldn't resist. Together, we wined and dined PSM until my daughter tenderly returned him to his seat in the hay. I breathed a short sigh of relief. Now, maybe we could get back to more wholesome adventures!

But this was not to be.

"Shpidoh Man's cwying!" My daughter's brow furrowed as she turned back to her new friend, and she again dragged him again from his seat. Her eyes begged me to make it all better.

Grudgingly, I asked if she thought PSM needed to sit on my lap. She nodded, and then looked a bit jealous once I got the hideous creature settled in. Instinctively, I knew what she wanted.

"Would you like to sit on Spider Man's lap while he sits on my lap?" I asked. This was getting ridiculous, but I just couldn't say no. The two-year old mind knows no bounds, after all. Too much of a good thing can't be had. My daughter climbed shyly aboard (it's not every day a girl gets to share Mommy's lap with a superhero) and immediately popped her thumb into her mouth: A sign of ultimate satisfaction.

We sat there, we three - me hunched over a lifeless red-and-blue wonder, who in turn sat hunched over a priceless princess with curls. The sun beat down on my neck and I suspected it had already scorched my skin. In the background, cowboy-lounge-bluegrass music blared. Children whirled on rides in the distance. But for my beautiful child, there was only this moment of bliss. Not one but two laps that loved her, and all the time in the world.

If I hadn't shifted positions, I suspect she'd have fallen asleep in our arms ... but at last she stirred, and stood up. The spell had been broken. The magic dispersed. Here we were, back in reality, and my daughter began toddling off toward the slides. But I caught in her glance the faint dreaminess of a moment that had shaped her forever. A soft place to sit - kind arms around her - and no one to say she was silly. What more could a two-year-old - or a thirty-year-old, for that matter - desire? Aside from a large puff of cotton candy, of course, the moment had been simple perfection ... and I'm grateful to have lived it together ... even if we did have to share it with a stuffed toy.