“Your difference is your strength, and your strength is your gift to the world.”
My daughter Azalea, a little elementary schooler, is very sweet and a shining example of the AIR Equation, the 3-part formula which states that Happiness = Acceptance + Inspiration + Respect. Her personality is in part due to my drilling of this equation into my children. I’m guilty, however, of being a little more lenient in this department on my son, the elder. Born and raised in a neighborhood full of ex-cons and Type-A athletes, I struggle at times on what’s the right mixture of sweetness for a boy.
My wife says our daughter has a loving softness to her. “Too loving,” many admirers say, some who don’t know her from Eve as they finally, reluctantly undo her hug of their necks. “Watch her. She’s too kind to strangers.” She accepts and befriends everyone: whites, blacks, the popular, misfits, bullies, the bullied, tall, short, girls, boys, the geeks, the meek. That’s Azalea, like her namesake plant that flowers in dry soil, looking to spread happiness in the most infertile places. This is why what she does later is so horrifying.
It’s Sunday. I’m reading the newspaper in my reclining love seat while she plays on the living room floor. I relive childhood through my two kids every day. The warm fuzzies get me as I listen to her talk for her dolls and act like the grown-up to them as she plays parent, teacher, or cashier.
Like a spy I covertly peel back the newspaper, turning my head so that my eye is the first thing to ease into view. I worry she may see me. I’m in luck--she has her back to me.
Her dolls sit in rows in a make-believe classroom with invisible desks and a wood-panel chalkboard which is our living room wall. Barbie teaches class as plastic people show no fear next to gigantic lions and tigers and bears. Azalea turns around to the class and I have to abandon my spy mission at once, an abrupt head jerk back to the Real Estate section.
From behind the newspaper I overhear her dismiss class and prepare her lifeless friends for a new activity. It sounds like she’s rolling her toy Volkswagen Bus to the school. I have to spy again to see her imagination in action. Sure enough, it’s the VW Bus. She instructs the dolls on where to sit. Azalea probably doesn’t realize she’s letting the cuter ones on first.
My cartoonist side notices this right away, how characters are made cuter by giving them a very small nose (or none at all) like the Bratz doll in the front seat and Hello Kitty peeking through the side window in the back. The lions and tigers wait to board. Her favorite doll, a teddy bear she hand-picked that sleeps with her, towers over everyone--even the bus. This may take awhile. As a dog is stuffed in, I return to my reading.
Barely a minute passes before I hear grunting, the type a kid may utter while pushing a tight Tinkertoy in place. Recalling some of the fits I had with a stubborn piece, I smile at her budding determination and turn to the Stocks page to check my Emerging Markets ETF price. She quiets down. She instructs some dolls to do something but I don’t pay close enough attention to discern what.
I hear thuds against the wall. And another. And yet another. She still has one of those hard little balls we found last week in the parking lot of the gym. Maybe they just took a fantasy trip there to play one-wall racquetball. I downshift into a more relaxed mode as I admire the tranquil picture of a travel article.
Azalea starts grunting again, this time with the growl of forcing a square peg into a round hole. It intensifies. Suddenly, I hear her banging something repeatedly on the floor with such ferocity that I can feel the vibrations through the love seat. With a loud rustle, I boldly lower the paper to see what’s going on with both eyes. Discarded dolls lie against the wall. And she’s vividly unhappy, body slamming her favorite teddy bear!
“Azalea?” I yell.
Silence. She huffs at the teddy bear lying with its legs up, its head at an awkward angle as if its neck is broken. Probably just a shift in stuffing. She crosses her arms on her chest and glares into space. Her scrunched face is red hot.
I dash to her and kneel down to her level. “Why are you beating him?”
“He doesn’t want to play with me anymore. I want him to ride with us but he won’t obey. He won’t get all the way inside.”
I look at the open roof of the bus, then the teddy bear. “He’s too tall to fit in, isn’t he?”
Without warning, she lunges for the bear and tries to force him through the roof, hind legs first. She grunts and stuffs him in with the classic tongue-out-to-the-side earnest you see in staged pictures of hard-working kids but rarely see in real life. He’s in thigh-high and seems set on going no further. The bus creaks and a little white crack begins to snake from a corner of the buckling roof. That pushes her over the edge. She pries the bear out and marches him to the kitchen trash can, his face bumping helplessly against the side of her fast-moving legs.
What in the world has gotten into her? I run and beat her to the trash can, holding the bear up from underneath as Azalea uses both hands to force him down into the garbage. The bear looks at me like a pleading peon on a torture rack.
Acceptance. Inspiration, Respect. I figure out an angle for the AIR Equation. “He can’t help his size. Don’t beat him up for it. He really wants to play with you.”
Redder in the face, she pushes the bear down with double effort.
An idea hit me. “Hey, you know how Daddy gets lost and uses his GPS system in the car?”
Despite her nod, she continues to push the bear with one hand while wiping a tear from her eye with the other.
I point at the ceiling. “It talks to a big satellite in the sky that can see where I’m headed and tell me the best way to get where I need to go.”
She nods again, still glaring into the trash.
“Well, your teddy bear can do the same thing for you and your friends. Put him on the roof where he can be at his best, able to see what others can’t and save you all from getting lost.”
The red drains from her face as if her opening smiling mouth is a release valve. She pulls the bear into her bosom, giving him her patented hug around the neck.
I read the magazine section now. It can’t offer much cover for me to spy and I don’t want it to after today’s episode. Azalea drives her dolls around the house for what seems like hours, covering every room--upstairs and downstairs. Her teddy bear sits like a guru on the roof. She asks him how to get somewhere because she’s never been down this road before, and he instructs her.
Another happy ending, courtesy of the AIR Equation.
Do you have a Happiness Hero or Horror Story to share? Would you or someone you know like an interview On The AIR? Email us at AIRequation[at]yahoo.com.
How happy are you? Want Gifts & Gear to help spread happiness? Shop here!
My wife says our daughter has a loving softness to her. “Too loving,” many admirers say, some who don’t know her from Eve as they finally, reluctantly undo her hug of their necks. “Watch her. She’s too kind to strangers.” She accepts and befriends everyone: whites, blacks, the popular, misfits, bullies, the bullied, tall, short, girls, boys, the geeks, the meek. That’s Azalea, like her namesake plant that flowers in dry soil, looking to spread happiness in the most infertile places. This is why what she does later is so horrifying.
It’s Sunday. I’m reading the newspaper in my reclining love seat while she plays on the living room floor. I relive childhood through my two kids every day. The warm fuzzies get me as I listen to her talk for her dolls and act like the grown-up to them as she plays parent, teacher, or cashier.
Like a spy I covertly peel back the newspaper, turning my head so that my eye is the first thing to ease into view. I worry she may see me. I’m in luck--she has her back to me.
Her dolls sit in rows in a make-believe classroom with invisible desks and a wood-panel chalkboard which is our living room wall. Barbie teaches class as plastic people show no fear next to gigantic lions and tigers and bears. Azalea turns around to the class and I have to abandon my spy mission at once, an abrupt head jerk back to the Real Estate section.
From behind the newspaper I overhear her dismiss class and prepare her lifeless friends for a new activity. It sounds like she’s rolling her toy Volkswagen Bus to the school. I have to spy again to see her imagination in action. Sure enough, it’s the VW Bus. She instructs the dolls on where to sit. Azalea probably doesn’t realize she’s letting the cuter ones on first.
My cartoonist side notices this right away, how characters are made cuter by giving them a very small nose (or none at all) like the Bratz doll in the front seat and Hello Kitty peeking through the side window in the back. The lions and tigers wait to board. Her favorite doll, a teddy bear she hand-picked that sleeps with her, towers over everyone--even the bus. This may take awhile. As a dog is stuffed in, I return to my reading.
Barely a minute passes before I hear grunting, the type a kid may utter while pushing a tight Tinkertoy in place. Recalling some of the fits I had with a stubborn piece, I smile at her budding determination and turn to the Stocks page to check my Emerging Markets ETF price. She quiets down. She instructs some dolls to do something but I don’t pay close enough attention to discern what.
I hear thuds against the wall. And another. And yet another. She still has one of those hard little balls we found last week in the parking lot of the gym. Maybe they just took a fantasy trip there to play one-wall racquetball. I downshift into a more relaxed mode as I admire the tranquil picture of a travel article.
Azalea starts grunting again, this time with the growl of forcing a square peg into a round hole. It intensifies. Suddenly, I hear her banging something repeatedly on the floor with such ferocity that I can feel the vibrations through the love seat. With a loud rustle, I boldly lower the paper to see what’s going on with both eyes. Discarded dolls lie against the wall. And she’s vividly unhappy, body slamming her favorite teddy bear!
“Azalea?” I yell.
Silence. She huffs at the teddy bear lying with its legs up, its head at an awkward angle as if its neck is broken. Probably just a shift in stuffing. She crosses her arms on her chest and glares into space. Her scrunched face is red hot.
I dash to her and kneel down to her level. “Why are you beating him?”
“He doesn’t want to play with me anymore. I want him to ride with us but he won’t obey. He won’t get all the way inside.”
I look at the open roof of the bus, then the teddy bear. “He’s too tall to fit in, isn’t he?”
Without warning, she lunges for the bear and tries to force him through the roof, hind legs first. She grunts and stuffs him in with the classic tongue-out-to-the-side earnest you see in staged pictures of hard-working kids but rarely see in real life. He’s in thigh-high and seems set on going no further. The bus creaks and a little white crack begins to snake from a corner of the buckling roof. That pushes her over the edge. She pries the bear out and marches him to the kitchen trash can, his face bumping helplessly against the side of her fast-moving legs.
What in the world has gotten into her? I run and beat her to the trash can, holding the bear up from underneath as Azalea uses both hands to force him down into the garbage. The bear looks at me like a pleading peon on a torture rack.
Acceptance. Inspiration, Respect. I figure out an angle for the AIR Equation. “He can’t help his size. Don’t beat him up for it. He really wants to play with you.”
Redder in the face, she pushes the bear down with double effort.
An idea hit me. “Hey, you know how Daddy gets lost and uses his GPS system in the car?”
Despite her nod, she continues to push the bear with one hand while wiping a tear from her eye with the other.
I point at the ceiling. “It talks to a big satellite in the sky that can see where I’m headed and tell me the best way to get where I need to go.”
She nods again, still glaring into the trash.
“Well, your teddy bear can do the same thing for you and your friends. Put him on the roof where he can be at his best, able to see what others can’t and save you all from getting lost.”
The red drains from her face as if her opening smiling mouth is a release valve. She pulls the bear into her bosom, giving him her patented hug around the neck.
I read the magazine section now. It can’t offer much cover for me to spy and I don’t want it to after today’s episode. Azalea drives her dolls around the house for what seems like hours, covering every room--upstairs and downstairs. Her teddy bear sits like a guru on the roof. She asks him how to get somewhere because she’s never been down this road before, and he instructs her.
Another happy ending, courtesy of the AIR Equation.
Do you have a Happiness Hero or Horror Story to share? Would you or someone you know like an interview On The AIR? Email us at AIRequation[at]yahoo.com.
How happy are you? Want Gifts & Gear to help spread happiness? Shop here!
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