Miriam in Miseryland

Yesterday Miriam had her first empathetic emotional experience. It was actually quite traumatic. She had checked out "Elmo in Grouchland" from the library and put it in to watch. For those who haven't seen it, it starts out with Elmo dancing around his bedroom looking for his blanket, who is also dancing around and teasing him a bit. Miriam loved this because she, like Elmo, loves her blankets. In fact, I have a half-composed-in-my-head post of "Miriam's Favorite Things #2" about her blankets. Stay tuned for that one. Just know for now that she does have an emotional attachment to her blankets and was totally getting into Elmo and his blanket playing peek-a-boo. Elmo and his blanket then went outside where they found Zoe, who was really sad because her dad was working and couldn't take her to the zoo. Elmo put the blanket down and started pretending to be different animals to cheer Zoe up. It worked a little bit, but Zoe picked up Elmo's blanket and wanted to use it. This made Elmo very nervous and after numerous grabs to get it back, the blanket fell into Oscar the Grouch's garbage can. At this point, Miriam began to be extremely worried. She kept repeating over and over "Elmo blanket... Elmo blanket... Elmo blanket..." in a very tense voice. She climbed up onto her dad's lap and peered out to see what Elmo would do. "Elmo blanket... Elmo blanket..." So Elmo climbs into the garbage can and sees the blanket falling down a psychadelic rainbow tunnel. Elmo jumps in after it. "Elmo blanket... Elmo blanket..." We both kept telling Miriam that Elmo was going to go save his blanket and that everything would be okay. It was actually pretty funny because at this point the movie action stops and Ernie and Bert show up on the screen. Bert is all worried about the blanket but Ernie assures him that Elmo won't give up until he gets his blanket back. I wonder how many kids were freaked out by this part during pre-screenings to make them put in the Bert and Ernie segment. Anyway, during the fall, the blanket goes through one tunnel and Elmo through another. Elmo lands in Grouchland, which is populated by, you guessed it, Grouches. It's actually pretty funny... the carwash slaps slime and goop on all the cars coming through, the hair place is called the "Ugly Parlor," and the streets are paved with mold. Miriam calmed down a little while Elmo looked around for his blanket. Then came the tragedy. Mandy Patinkin, the guy who plays Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride, showed up with the lost blanket. Miriam watched in horror as he sang and danced around teasing Elmo with the blanket. When he threw the blanket into a chest in his airplane and flew away, she absolutely lost it. Shudders, sobs, and tears poured forth from my little girl as she collapsed on her dad's shoulder. "Elmo blanket back! Elmo blanket back!" Ernie and Bert showed up to reassure us, but it was way too late. I told Miriam that we were going to fast forward the show and see what happens. We put the DVD onto the 8x forward and narrated the show through the flashes of pixels that we saw. Elmo is brave and going to get his blanket, Big Bird comes to help, even Oscar shows up. Still Miriam is bawling and shaking. She has switched from dad's lap to mine and my arms are positively wet with her tears. We get to the end where Elmo finally gets his blanket back and is safe on Sesame Street. They start singing the happy "Together Forever" song, and Miriam finally calms down. She's still crying, but finally laughing and smiling a bit through her shaky and shuddery breathing. Ernie tells Bert that he shouldn't have worried, that Elmo of course was going to find a his blanket. Yeah, thanks Ernie. A lot of good that did us all. As soon as they cut to the credits (where Bert was excited to see who the caterer was because GOSH those sandwiches with the crusts cut off were so good), Miriam started crying again. "Elmo blanket back? Elmo blanket back? Elmo blanket back?" So we had to watch the closing segment a few times before she calmed down. I think it was emotionally draining for all of us. This morning, Miriam again asked for Elmo. She shuffled through her stack of movies and pulled it out. I didn't want to tell her it's too scary or make her think that she's not tough enough to watch it, so we tried it again. Same thing. This time, though, she knew that the guy wouldn't give the blanket back and she started crying as soon as he came on the screen. Ernie and Bert certainly couldn't handle this one. We fast forwarded it, sang the happy song a few times, and put the movie up. It's going back to the library where it can haunt some other poor little child. I was planning on getting "Elmo's Potty Time," thinking that it would be an enjoyable romp through the potty world. But now I see that it's "Not Rated." Seeing as though "Elmo in Grouchland" is G, I just don't know what a "Not Rated" would do to our otherwise happy and well-adjusted little girl...