Apparently, Elmo is my granddaughter's soulmate

Lucy is an Elmo addict. I’m not sure how it happened, but, it did. She is 18 months old, and he is practically her entire life. Yeah, her grandmother, dad, mother, aunt and uncle liked Elmo. Alright, I’ll admit it, I like Elmo, too, but Lucy is fixated, infatuated, and obsessed. You know how some kids can’t be without their blanket or their binky. Well, Lucy is that kid, but she isn’t hooked on things. She is hooked on this little hairy dude. She never cries; never yells; never utters a peep until Elmo leaves the screen, and then it’s time to put in your ear plugs as she freaks out for her favorite boy toy.

Several months ago she learned some sign language like the little kid in “Meet the Fockers - Meet the Parents 2.” She could sign that she was hungry, ask for things like milk, and “give me more,” but her first real word was ELMO. He is absolutely her soul mate.

Her parents live in one of those immense, “Tony Soprano” type houses with big screen televisions everywhere. These big screen, HDTV, electrical devices like the ones depicted in the old George Orwell science fiction movie, “1984,” require a minimum of three remote controls to turn them on. Well, Miss Lucy has figured out how to do that on her own. She’s also learned to make the DVD player work so that she can watch Elmo. In fact, when we visit her, I say, “Lucy, Honey, can you turn on the TV for Poppa?” She looks up and says, “Poppa? Elmo,” and we watch Elmo for the next three hours or until I fall into a permanent loss of consciousness.

This little red hairy monster (You know they are all considered monsters) always refers to himself as Elmo. He says things like, “Elmo loves to dance,” rather than, “I love to dance,” or “Elmo loves hot dogs.” It appears that this little puppet, who, according to his parents has been 3 ½ years old for decades now, seems to have stolen her heart.

Of course she likes, Dorothy, the goldfish, and the madcap Mr. Noodle, but Elmo is her guy. Actually, Mr. Noodle kind of scares me. He reminds me of the male whose poster is stapled to telephone poles around playgrounds. You know the type; a little too creepy. Dorothy, on the other hand, kind of makes up for him as she swims around her little bowl and tries to eat the 40 pounds of fish food that Elmo accidentally drops in when his little furry hand connected to the dowel rod shakes the container too hard.

Elmo didn't became a major star until 1996 when “Tickle Me Elmo” became the must have Christmas toy that year, but that was 10 years before little Lucy was born. Actually, 1996 was a wild year. Even people who didn't like or know Elmo got into that furry buying frenzy. It was like the year my three year old daughter wanted a Cabbage Patch doll, and none could be bought anywhere except on E-Bay. In fact the E-Bay dolls cost as much as a used car. It was so out of my price range that I had a friend make her her very own doll out of scraps and rags, and we named it something really strange like Amerada. Yeah, well it got me through a tough spot.

Lucy’s cousin is an Elmo fan, too, but her favorite Elmo video is currently “Elmo’s Potty Time.” The review of this movie states that, “It will leave toddlers flush with the excitement about learning to use the potty or toilet by themselves.” My very favorite part of this video is a montage of the numerous dissimilar names children have for bodily excretions. It goes on to say that this verbal mosaic will produce giggles.

Yes, it does.

As Elmo says, "When you gotta go, you gotta go."