Let’s say you’re in a 7 year old funk.  That funk that inevitably comes with a neurodevelopmental growth spurt when you realize you know more than you did, but not as much as you’ll need…and you are so far from the tweens, it’s like a distant mirage, floating around the Middle School hallway.  You see it on Disney.  You hear it discussed at the 4th grade lockers, but it’s not in your near future.  YOU ARE BUMMED.

You try to quell your angst with some Kim Possible, which teaches you to talk to the people around you like they are dumb. Hmm.  This goes on for a while.  Not feeling any real relief, you decide to BE Kim Possible, karate chopping your sister, the air, and in the general direction of your Mother.  You are STILL not waking up in your own Disney sitcom day after day (Hey Jesse! Hey SARA!), so you start making the horrible facial expressions of your greatest hero, the sassy and not-very-humble Kim Possible.  Your Mother finds putting up with this to be IMPOSSIBLE, so she deletes these shows from every electronic device in your world.

You are bereft.  Even the sassy tone of Gregory in Diary of A Wimpy Kid can’t ease your pain. Kim is gone. Gone for good.  Why?! Because a bad influence does not become a good influence when that influence is a static cartoon character invented in 2002. Kim can’t change baby.  But you can.

Maybe you challenge the house with your attitude until you are grounded from everything invented past 1935-ish. Grounding around here is a lesson in history.  You may use the toilet, but you may not use the iPhone. Was it invented in the Information Age?  Sorry ’bout yo’ luck. But don’t despair, you are SARA, the Master of your Universe.  If someone invented the “i” world, so can you!

Which is why 2 small pillows, some sunglasses, and a spatula from the play kitchen serve as perfect prototypes for a homemade iPod touch. You can sing and dance all day, especially around your Mother, proving that if your world goes away, you can paint a new one.  You are Sara.  Creativity starts here.

And your Momma loves you, even on the days you think you are a teenage Ninja Crime Fighter.  Your Father has that same thought every day of his life, and Momma still puts up with him.  Your future looks bright indeed.  Now, if you could just figure out how to start the car…