Eli is Living the Good Ol’ Days

There are so many emotions and feelings that a child can bring into your life: happiness, joy, confusion, silliness, frustration, pride…but the one thing I hear a lot of people talk about is how their children remind them of what it was to be a kid. Parents often say they become a child again when they are playing with their children.

Silly me, I was sure that I understood that sentiment, but the truth is that it wasn’t until yesterday that I truly grasped the notion of becoming a child again – all thanks to Eli. See, even though I am not proud of this, one of Eli’s favorite past times in the whole wide world is watching TV. If we didn’t control it, she would probably spend all her free time in front of the tube (the tube? It’s not a tube anymore, is it?). And one of my big problems with this is that 90% of what is on TV is junk. It’s awful. I hate it. Cartoons are gross and dumb; TV shows are vulgar; cable is full of graphic, violent and usually PG13 movies. My daughter being only seven years old and TV lover, it’s often a struggle to find something we can agree on for her to watch.

(Warning to non-mexican readers: the movies and shows I am about to mention are all mexican, because that is what we are, so please bear with me).

So, you can imagine how happy I was when my husband introduced Eli to the movies made by his favorite comedian, the ones he watched when he was growing up. This comedian’s name is Cantinflas and he made a huge amount of funny movies, these were not even from my husband’s childhood years, but from a generation before. The movies are mostly black & white, they are so old that some are fuzzy even though they have been restored and digitalized and whatnot. But Eli liked them. She got the jokes and they made her laugh and now we have a huge collection of Cantiflas movies.

Then came my movies. Pedro Infante is probably my favorite actor of all times and his movies range from extremely dramatic films to comedic ones; not only that, but he wasn’t just a great actor, he also had one of the greatest voices I’ve heard, his songs are timeless. The funny thing is that these movies and songs are also not from my time, they were already old when I watched them at Eli’s age. But there’s something about them that just captured me and now capture my daughter’s attention as well. We’ve begun collecting his movies too.

But the best came yesterday when my husband told her about a TV show we used to watch as kids. This one was so famous that they now have cartoons, but the cartoons are no fun compared to the original show. The name of the show is El Chavo, then came El Chapulín Colorado – this one was hilarious. She already knows El Chavo and likes it but yesterday Javier pulled some Chapulín episodes from YouTube and she was instantly hooked.

It was wonderful hearing her laugh like I used to, like Javier used, as she watched the show. Now I understand what all those parents mean when they say they become children again. I stood there watching this show that is so silly and naïve and laughed along with my innocent little girl and for a while, it felt like we were all seven again.

These old and simple jokes had the three of us (Javier included) laughing ourselves silly. It felt good to know we could all sit there and laugh at the same thing. It felt good to not worry about a grown-up joke coming up at an inopportune time or a joke so age inappropriate that it would bring Eli to a million questions I don’t want to answer.

After a while Javier and I went about our business but Eli was in front of the computer, ear-phones on and cracking up. I could hear her hearty and contagious laugh and it made me happy; it made me smile and it made me warm and fuzzy all over – thinking of relaxed afternoons and good times. And thinking about the feeling this gave me, I’m not entirely sure it was the TV show that had me laughing. I think it was Eli’s beautiful and refreshing laugh that made me feel so good. You'd have to hear her to know what I mean, she could make anyone happy...

Usually when you hear people talk about the good old days, they are referring to the days they were young and happy and without a care in the world. I just hope that I am giving Eli enough love and good times so that her good old days aren’t made up of just old movies and TV shows.