Cute Tots

The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. ~Randy Pausch

My brother graduated on Wednesday. From pre-K. Not the most significant of milestones, but I swear, that ceremony was the most adorable thing I've ever witnessed. I can't remember the last time I smiled and laughed so much. Each little graduate was called up to receive his or her diploma and each was asked what he or she wanted to be as a grown-up. Michelle asked if she could be two things and, when given the okay, said, "A teacher. And a mom." I died from the cuteness. And then Kira said she wanted to be Hannah Montana! Death #2. Flip said he didn't know (what a shock; it must run in the family), but his teachers suggested he could be a car designer. Apparently he points out the models of cars in the parking lots when the kiddies take walks outside. I laughed at that, but I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, since he does that when we go out too. After the ceremony, much to everyone's amusement, Flip told us that he actually wanted to be Dr. Sussman - the president of the hospital that runs the child care center he attends.

I've been thinking a lot lately about Randy Pausch and "really achieving your childhood dreams." Did I want to become someone I really admired, some Dr. Sussman in my life? Did I want to be a singer, a teacher, a mom? (Somehow I doubt bioengineer was on the shortlist.) I did a fair amount of flying (as in traveling, not piloting, obviously, though that would have been awesome) as a kid, and I remember wanting to be a flight attendant because flight attendants were the most glamorous people I'd ever seen in real life. I also recall thinking I could be a fashion designer despite having - and pictures will confirm this - no sense of style.

Because my mind fails me and can't come up with the childhood dreams I was actually serious about, I wonder if Pausch just had superior memory - or if his "childhood dreams" were actually spectacular events that occurred later in life, which he then attributed to being childhood dreams come true. I think we all do that sometimes, reinvent our pasts to better fit our current perception of them. When I think "childhood dream" (or "dream come true," which I've often used to describe it), the first thing that comes to mind is my Jeopardy! adventure, but was it really, or did I trick myself into thinking that, just because the show had been a staple of my childhood and adolescence and, if I hadn't, I should have dreamed about being on it?

Too bad there's not video of me as an eight-year-old, playing along with the TV and shouting, "I want to go on Jeopardy!" ...

No, seriously, there isn't. But wouldn't it be amusing if there were? There were so many cameras out at Flip's graduation, and I heard one parent say that if the kids who said they'd be celebrities really did become famous, you know video of the ceremony would be up on YouTube. So true.

Anyway, I suppose it doesn't really matter whether or not our achievements were actual childhood dreams. It only matters that, brick walls be damned, we make sure those spectacular things happen in our lives, regardless of when we first decided to do so. I'm perfectly satisfied to fulfill "high school dreams" and "college dreams," but by the time I accomplish some of them, I probably won't be able to pinpoint when I dreamed them up anyway. On the flip side (pun intended!), my brother has multiple witnesses - and video evidence - to remind him that, at five and a half years old, when his friends were dreaming of being soccer players and firefighters and dentists, he was still weighing his options.

Rock on, kid, I say. Rock on.