Easter Memory: Puppy Surprise

I spent part of my hour free time between work and showering this morning cleaning out my smelly refrigerator, so I didn't have time to run for a full 6 miles, and anything under that just seems not worth it nowadays, so instead, I decided to update with a "True Story." I know that both you, the reader, and my nose (which no longer smells the funk from the frige), thank me. :)

Let me set the scene: The year is 1991. I am nine-years-old, and the newest fad to hit children's toys is the  Puppy Surprise . In case you are too young to have heard of this dear (and somewhat strange) toy or too old to recall her, you can familiarize yourself with her by watching her commercial. I can still remember that song, even before I listened to the youtube video. I recalled it like it was yesterday.

I must say, watching the commercial makes me wanna take the mattress off my bed frame and dig out the memory box to find my Puppy Surprise. I keep lots of memories and old stuffed animals in the storage compartment under the mattress, but I digress.

Here's the story: Like many impressionable children, the marketing for the Puppy Surprise toy got to me. I salivated for one. Unfortunately, I did not hear the little blurb at the end of the commercial that said only 1 in 5 children receive four or five puppies in their Puppy Surprises, so when I told my mom and dad that I HAD to have a Puppy Surprise from the Easter Bunny, I also included that she needed to include at least four babies although I'd prefer five, (but wouldn't be too picky because I knew Mr. Rabbit had a lot of kids to give Puppy Surprises too. What a thoughtful little social-justice-advocate-in-the-making I was).

Mom, of course, tried to remind me that she didn't know if the Easter Bunny would be able to get me a Puppy Surprise, especially one with four or five babies, and that I had to realize that most puppy moms only had three babies. I was disappointed, but understood...kind of. But I didn't let up talking about my need for a Puppy Surprise and my hopes that the powerful, magic bunny would hear me and pay heed. (Let's skip over the whole conversation that needs to be had about why a nine-year-old still believed in the Easter bunny, ok? Sigh, 4th grade. The year I argued with the class bully over the fact that Santa Claus really DID exist because my parents wouldn't lie to me and because Santa had met everyone of my demands in previous years like: 1. leaving a half eaten cookie, 2. writing me a note -which I scrutinized to make sure wasn't written by my mother, whose handwriting I knew. I never thought to ask what Dad's handwriting looked like. I'm not sure I knew he wrote....Mom always signed my homework,- 3. and even giving me part of his beard  at my request. I bet Mom thanked Jesus for decorate-holiday-white angel hair that  year because it helped her keep up her ruse. I kept what I believed to be Santa's whiskers in a ziplock bag in my closet for years. I'm not sure what happened to them though).

Moving on, one day I managed to let my continuing cries for the Puppy Surprise be heard in front of Dad. Mom tried to explain again that it would be very hard for the Easter Bunny to give a puppy with four or five babies to EVERY kid that wanted one. She said I should settle for three puppies, but Dad, seeing a chance to provoke Mom or something, told me that I should 'pray' that Jesus would let the Easter Bunny bring me a Puppy Surprise with four or five puppies. Now as Mom tells the story, Dad didn't really think that 'praying' for things worked, so his suggestion was more of a mock aimed toward Mom's faith and desire to pray about everything from parking spaces to people's eternal salvation, but I jumped at this suggestion and started praying  passionately and fervently, every day, to Jesus, begging that He would let the Easter Bunny bring me a Puppy Surprise with four babies. Mom, of course, heard these prayers, and she found herself in a pickle. She didn't want my child-like faith to be dashed at such a young age, but I guess she also didn't feel she could just 'leave-it-to-fate' to see if Jesus would answer prayers about magic bunnies and Puppy Surprises with odds of 1 in 5. Instead, she took it upon herself to help God out a little, (and I'm not blaming her here. I understand why she did what she did even if I don't agree with it).

Mom started going to the store regularly, sometimes with me in hand, and perusing up and down the Puppy Surprise aisle. I would be busy looking at them lustfully and imagining the day I opened mine with her 209385764 babies from Jesus inside and stroked her fluffy fur. Mom, in the mean time, would carefully and inconspicuously open each Puppy Surprise box, put her hand up inside the fake-puppy-womb, and check for the number of puppies. I suppose this was fine. She is a pediatric nurse after-all ;).

I think I caught her one time, inspecting a puppy-belly, and she said she was thinking of getting a Puppy Surprise for my best friend Ashley whose birthday was coming up, and that she just wanted to make sure it had babies. I can't remember exactly. I know I never saw her purchase a Puppy Surprise, but she sure did look through a lot of boxes.

Eventually the shopping trips ended, and I said my final prayers to Jesus about baby puppies and bunnies. The day was March 30th, 1991, and I was headed to bed at my Granny Boyette's (which I pronounced the good Southern way- Boit) in my Pongo-Pajama shirt, just KNOWING Jesus would grant me (yes like a genie) my Puppy Surprise on Easter morning.

The next day when I awoke, my first thought was not about the risen Christ; rather, it was about how many baby PUPPIES were awaiting me in Granny Boyette's living room. I got up, brushed my teeth, fixed my hair,  and waited until Mom and Dad got the camera ready so that I could enter and be 'surprised.'

Of course, I got my Puppy Surprise. I don't remember the exact moment except that I was wide-eyed and made a big deal about it. I certainly was very happy. I do have a picture where I'm holding up my prized Puppy, but it's back in Georgia. I'll get it next week. What I remember most, however, was being so excited that MY Puppy Surprise had FOUR PUPPIES INSIDE HER STOMACH! Jesus had heard my prayer and answered. I was so ecstatic, and I was telling everyone. I prayed for four puppies and got them. I was a beaming child who took her Puppy Surprise to church with her that morning...and the theological tone for the rest of my life was set I suppose...Jesus answers prayer...just how we want...if we pray enough.

I'm not sure when, but at some point in the future, I found out the truth about my Puppy Surprise. (Perhaps you've already seen it coming). Apparently, Mom had looked through all the Puppy Surprises in countless stores to find one with four babies. She attempted to find one with five, but couldn't. Now as most stories in my household go, there is more than one version of this story: Dad's version...and Mom's version.

• I believe Dad's version was that Mom never did find a four-puppy Puppy Surprise; therefore, she had to TAKE a baby from a three-puppy "Puppy" and put it INTO another three-puppy "Puppy" to CREATE a four-puppy "Puppy." Dad says THAT'S why I didn't get five puppies, because Mom couldn't bear to bring herself to rob some other poor child of another puppy.  (Because if you do the math, you realize, stealing a puppy from a three-puppy Puppy Surprise leaves some poor child with a two-puppy Puppy  Surprise. I hope the story isn't true, but if it is, I hope that "Puppy" never got purchased).
• Mom's version of the story goes that she 'didn't' do this, of course. Rather, that eventually, through her diligent efforts, she stumbled upon a four-puppy "Puppy" and purchased it. 

ANYWAYS, I find so many things interesting about this story. Like I said, I don't blame my Mom, whether she did right or wrong, I'll let God judge that. But I don't think I would do the same, or at least I hope not? I try to imagine, 'What would I do if I were in this situation with my own child or Franklin?' I think I would be honest. If someone told Franklin to pray for the Puppy Surprise with four or five puppies, and the decision about how to proceed was ONLY left up to me (and not his real parents) I suppose I'd let him (at age four) pray for it. I don't know that I'd let him believe a magic bunny brought it though. I'm not sure. I  would definitely give some kid version explanation about how the prayer could possibly be answered though. I'd say, maybe, that similar to how Mommy and Daddy's sometimes have to tell their little boys 'no' because they know it's best for the little boys even if the little boys don't understand, sometimes God has to answer 'no,' or 'not yet,' or 'not this way' because He is God and thinks SO DIFFERENT than us. He is much greater and to be loved and respected and trusted. Then I'd remind Him of WHY He CAN BE loved, respected, and trusted. I mean, I'd TRY to do this. I know it's probably all MUCH harder than it sounds. And how can a four-year-old understand? But I'd try.

If he were nine-years-old, I'd DEFINITELY break the cold hard truth to him about magic, hopping, bunnies. I suppose I'd tell him he could pray that I would purchase a Puppy Surprise with four babies, but I would definitely break out the kid friendly explanation of prayer. See, my mom was attempting to keep my faith in tact through her actions, but the introspective part of me thinks it probably taught me at a young age that I was capable of 'getting God' to do what I wanted through my actions. I mean, I remember praying hard and diligently, like clock-work, for my four or five puppies, whichever He could find. And I remember being jaded and disillusioned later in life when the same efforts didn't pay off in the same way. Wasn't I supposed to be able to manipulate Him? Like couldn't I promise Him I'd take that new boy I liked to church if He'd JUST let him like me back? Hmmm.

What else is interesting about this story is that a few months after Easter, I found a tiny baby 'puppy' from a Puppy Surprise abandoned in the parking lot at a local store. It looked like it had been outside for a few days, so Mom said I could take it. We took it home and washed it, and then I had FIVE puppies. I find this interesting because even if Mom had not have gone to all her efforts to ensure that I received four puppies Easter morning, I believe I STILL would have stumbled across this additional puppy in the parking lot a few months later, which would have then brought me a final total of FOUR puppies...AND....all four would have come to me very honestly.

The implications of this are just ridiculous to me! (In a good way!) Perhaps you'll think I'm crazy, but we have a God sovereign of all time, right? And a God interested in even the number of hairs on our heads, right? I think God was interested in hearing a child's prayer back in 1991 and in beginning a relationship with her even if it was based off of a shallow understanding of Him and confusing thoughts about His genie status. And had I been disappointed with God on Easter morning if He'd only allowed me to have three puppies, I would have found a few months later that He had actually given me what I wanted...in a special way and in His time. Either way, He was at work...in all things.

Unfortunately, after we moved from the house on Old Petersburg Road in 1999, I misplaced all five of my puppies. I found my Puppy Surprise a few years ago, but I never found the five puppies. I loved them so much though. I even made a house for them out of a cardboard box and drew little puppy beds for them on the inside of the box. Writing about it brings tears to my eyes because I remember how much I loved this toy. I drew grass and trees and flowers on the side of the cardboard box, and I cut out windows, and I made a movable door. I took good care of those five puppies that I believed were my gift from God through His magical bunny. I really hate that I lost them in the move.

I also remember that each puppy had a name based on how he/she looked. Nearing 30, I can't remember the names, but I bet my memory would be jogged if I could find them and look at them again. I know one was named Spot. My favorite puppy was the fifth one that I found in the parking lot though. She was a little different than all the others. She was more pink and girly looking. She probably came from a Puppy Surprise that looked totally different than mine. I always liked her the best and gave her the most attention. She had a special place in my heart.

So here we are, 21 years later, and this memory is still fresh in many ways, a memory that shaped me. I wonder if the story would have had so much meaning had not Dad provoked Mom with his joust that I should 'pray' about it. I wonder if this story would have had as much meaning if I had never found out Mom's slightly under-handed actions that went on behind the scene? I think without each of those things, this story wouldn't have been so highlighted in my memory, so I'm kinda thankful for their actions, even if they were imperfect, because I like this memory. It teaches me about God, about a God who was present with me in 1991 when my parents were scrambling and scuttling and trying to figure out how to be parents and messing up (like I'm sure I will). God was present with me when I was first learning to pray for something and wondering about conditions and 'if' He'd answer and 'why' He'd answer and 'how' He'd answer. He was with me back then, starting a journey, and He's with me today, still in the midst of it.

I looked through about five boxes of childhood memories over Christmas; I never found the puppies from Puppy Surprise. I'm headed home for a few days next week, however. I think I'll look again, but before that, I think I'll ask God if He'd allow me to come across them. For nostalgic and reflective purposes, I'd like to hold them again in my hands. They've aged 21 years, as have my hands and eyes and desires and prayers. I'd like to thank Him for that, and for His hand in it.