It’s Impossible to Freeze Moments in Time, Even If You’re Practically Living in the Frozen Movie
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Artwork courtesy of Mixkit.co
My life has been very Frozen-centric lately. My three-year-old’s obsession with the movie started a couple months ago and is still going strong. Her passion seems to be carrying as much momentum as Kristoff’s sled trying to escape from the wolves. Incidentally, some might argue her love for Frozen is as frightening as a hungry pack of wolves.
She requests that we watch all or very specific parts of the movie every day. In addition, she often meanders around the house carrying my phone and singing along to the soundtrack. Both of these activities are adorable, if a bit repetitive. However, her more recent obsession with playing with Anna and Elsa dolls for hours on end is borderline diabolical.
To be clear, she does not play with Anna and Elsa dolls alone. She plays with another person. And yes, that person is often me.
It’s not just Anna and Elsa either. They both have offspring who, of course, do not exist in the cinematic universe. They are named Anya and Elsya. As far as I know, they were given these stupid names by the YouTube family my daughter watches religiously.
My daughter constantly mixes up their relationships, sometimes calling them sisters or friends rather than cousins, so it is a predictable nightmare. To be fair, the doll relationship thing is tricky because, again, the characters are completely fictional, fictional characters! Non-existent characters within an imaginary world. It’s like toddler Inception but not quite that ridiculous and self-indulgent.
For several weeks or years, I suffered through this doll play madness, which quickly veered toward exceptionally boring because the storylines my daughter made us follow lacked any emotional depth.
Anya and Elsya were always complaining about something trivial or their moms were nagging them about something but whenever I asked what underlying emotions were driving their actions my daughter just stared at me blankly and/or called me “poopy.”
I began to dread being summoned to the playroom because I knew what was waiting for me. Hours of creative frustration.
Eventually though, I came up with a solution. Or perhaps my daughter did. Either way, the end result is that I am much more satisfied by our doll play time now.
Instead of acting out random scenes from YouTube doll videos, we have started recreating scenes from Frozen. Or the entire movie in one sitting. Whatever the mood dictates.
You might be thinking, Andrew, are you really happy with this change? Is re-enacting a movie with dolls an improvement?
Reader, I am absolutely on board with this change and to appreciate how much my life has improved you have to understand the depths from which we started. You see, creating scenes with dolls is my primary daytime activity. For those of you have day jobs, think how much your mental outlook improves when you’re happy with your work life. My work right now is Anna and Elsa dolls. So, when they are doing well, I am doing well.
And let me tell you, Anna and Elsa are doing splendidly. Sure, there are setbacks because I somehow always forget how the reprise to “For the First Time in Forever” goes even though I’ve listened to it seven million times, but overall, our theatrical stylings are coming along very nicely, and my voice is in near-peak form.
You’re probably wondering if there is video. Yes, there is obviously video, and you are required to watch it.
And now that you’re back, allow me to become melodramatic and reflective for a moment. It never ceases to amaze me how something like playing with Frozen dolls can be such a huge part of my life right now, and yet, in maybe a year I’ll hardly remember that it was something we ever even did.
I mean, I’ll remember it a bit more than I do some other things because I’m writing this article and that always helps me remember. And because my inflections in the climactic scene of were, if we’re being objective, completely on point.
However, there are so many things we do as parents and just as plain old humans that seem big in the moment but are quickly lost to the relentlessness of the passage of time. I don’t know what to make of that, really.
Perhaps nothing matters except the present moment. Maybe “making memories” is a fool’s errand. Heck, maybe nothing matters at all.
Except absolutely killing it as the Elsa doll singing “Let It Go” in the ice castle atop the North Mountain (which looks a lot like a unicorn bean bag chair). That definitely matters. And it always will. At least until my daughter leaves Frozen (and me) behind for good.
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