Today's Post is Brought to You by the Letter L

My niece, Lydia, is nearing the age of six. She's a full-fledged kindergartner, apparently with custody of the class stuffed frog for the weekend. I fear that she's approaching that period in her life where she's "too old" for Sesame Street.

"What period?" you ask in earnest shock. Alas, it is true: for a time, all kids leave Sesame behind. It even happened to me (well, for middle school, maybe). Little ones grow, and soon they are too cool to watch the kid's shows. They're always stretching to that next grade, reaching for the older-kids section in the library, rushing to the time when they can make their own decisions about what is cool and interesting. The stoop at 123 Sesame Street no longer holds their attention, and if it does, they can't let anyone know.

The one thing that puts me at ease about the journey away from Sesame that all kids take is that it is a circular path we tread. We all come back eventually, and like reading that novel fifteen years later, we come back with wisdom and a greater appreciation for what we thought we had left behind.

Lydia is lucky, I think. She has a younger brother. She has a lunatic aunt with what amounts to an Ernie shrine. And she has one of those big little-kid hearts that grows and grows when she makes that brother or aunt smile. Because of these things, I suspect that her Sesame-free years will be brief and somewhat forestalled. I hope they are, at least, because my office needs more Ernie and Bert-inspired artwork.