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PiscesAmy Brenneman: The Return of My Kid's American Girl Doll
Amy Brenneman: Finding that doll saved my daughter from a momentary crisis. Let me explain.
We returned to the hotel. The plan was to let the kids relax in front of a TV in the lobby (playing, shockingly enough, classic Disney cartoons), while Brad and Matt scoured the hotel for Rebecca. Charlotte was oblivious. She had casually mentioned wanting to hold Rebecca in the car ride home, assuming -- as any well-adjusted child would -- that she in fact would be there. That her parents, in fact, hadn't LOST her favorite toy.
I stayed with the kids. I was receiving texts from Brad: "Going up. Looking under the bed. Not there." My heart started to beat fast.
I talked to myself. "Charlotte's a big girl," I told me. "She used to tantrum about stuff like this, but she's older now. And if she does freak out," I tried to convince me, "then it'll be a learning moment about Things Not Always Working Out." This, while I was checking to see if the American Girl store was open on Sundays.
And then, like the rock rolled away on Easter morning -- a miracle. Saint Matt floated through on his "I studied theater at USC" legs and placed Rebecca into the arms of Charlotte, who did not even look away from the TV. She hugged her dolly into her chest, the most natural thing in the world.
Tears came into my eyes. "Housekeeping had to look a third time, don't know why they didn't find her the first," Saint Matt explained. But that wasn't why I was crying. I was crying because a child had been protected from a crisis that she didn't need to know about, by adults who worked hard to protect her. I was crying for all the times that I was protected, and all the times I wasn't. I was crying thinking about all those children who will never be protected, and whose every waking minute is crisis. And I was crying because just once more, we protected Charlotte so that she could have the privilege of obliviousness. She's strong, my girl. She has already faced many challenges that other kids her age haven't faced. So forgive me for wanting to protect her just a little while longer.
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Amy Brenneman is an award-winning producer and actress whose TV credits include "NYPD Blue," "Judging Amy" (which she also created and produced) and, currently, ABC's "Private Practice." She works with the nonprofit groups Healthy Child/Healthy World, The Feminist Majority and the Cornerstone Theater Company, of which she's a founding member. She is mother to Charlotte and Bodhi and wife to filmmaker Brad Silberling. They live in the San Fernando Valley, the most hip place to be in all of Los Angeles. |
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- 11 Comments
I always enjoy posts from Amy Brenneman…and I totally get this! I have a “disaster plan” in place for my little one’s blanky. She placed claim on a lavendar plush blanket when she was around 10 months old…almost 2 years later, purple blanky goes with us everywhere. So one day I was shopping at TJMaxx and saw that they had a few of the same blanket on sale for $8.00…I bought 2. So yes, I now have two extra purple blankies tucked away in the linen closet. But its insurance….good insurance. Why should she have to suffer through the “crisis” of losing or damaging her blanky? It is something I can protect her from…and completely worth it!
That’s awesome that you found her doll. I had a crisis like that twenty years ago, when I was six, on holiday in Germany. I don’t remember how many toys I had brought with me on this trip, but there was this one doll that was incredibly prescious to me that I brought with me to the sandbox at the camping site we were staying at in Berlin, I didn’t realize I had left her behind until a little while after I had gone back to our caravan.
Mom and I went back to look for her, but she was already gone. However, mom, with her eternal motherly wisdom, solved the crisis by making up a story about some poor German child who probably didn’t have a doll like that and who by luck found one in a sandbox at a camping site and took it home with them. The idea that my beloved doll was making some other child happy, a child that maybe didn’t have the same great things that I had, it was enough to comfort six-year-old me. Maybe that would help you, too, should you ever end up facing the actual crisis.
Of course, in my case, one crisis was almost immediately followed by another. A day or two later my family was driving on Autobahn and we ended up colliding with the median strip. No human lives were lost, thankfully we all made it through without as much as a scratch on us, but when the carvan tipped over, battery acid ruined a lot of our things, included my other doll, Marianne, that I had brought with me on the trip… I don’t remember what mom said or did there, possibly I got so distracted by everything else that had happened that the loss/destruction of Marianne, as beloved a doll that she was, it just didn’t mean as much. Maybe I recognized that I was not the only one who lost something in that crash.
SUCH a real story Amy. I totally related. We once left Twitches (the purple stuffed beloved bunny) in an LA hotel room…and not the fancy, ritzy, nice, 5 star hotel room that we had been staying in, but the dreaded airport hotel room that we grabbed for the last night since our flight was so dreadfully early the next morning. I say this only to magnify our panic when we realized upon arriving back home in Charlotte, NC that Twitches was not in fact with us and thinking there is no way this hotel is even going to bother looking for this bunny, why oh why couldn’t we have left at the nice place where they might actually care?? Cut to 24 hours later and a late night detour made by my fabulous sister to said hotel where Twitches was rescued and mailed back overnight to us. Phew. Major crisis averted.
Good for you all for protecting your girl and keeping her from having to learn any tough lessons right at that moment. Disney really is the most magical place on earth! ;)
Sounds oh so familiar :) The two-year-old I used to babysit had a sheep for a stuffed animal, that she named Beasty. All our attempts at Whity, Wooly, Lammy and Patrick-Henry in vain. No such thing as loosing it for over an hour. Even playing at home she couldn’t go longer than 10 minutes without looking up, raising her hands in despair and going ‘Oh! Beasy go..?’ Which then set off another tour of mine from under the table and behind the couch, along the backside of the DVD collection, to recollect a dusty sheep stuck between the freezer and the fridge.
It too came with her everywhere, even to the park (‘Hold it firmly though, Kelsey!’ which made her nod and all but strangle the sheep) where it was to stay in her buggy at all times. Except for that one time when her sis ran up a bridge and I picked her up and ran after the kid. And turned to overlook the pond. And saw something white fly from the corner of my eye.
Needless to say I took a muddy swim.
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I loved your story, Amy. Now that I am a grandmother of small children, it brings it all back. Very poignant. I think you are a really good writer and I’ll keep reading your stories.
Thanks Amy, really been blessed by this. I’ve been awake worried about few things, but reading this made me realise the love of God in my life, and how he will protect me (like we protect our children) from things I’m unaware of and things I’m so worried about.
Also reminds me of my 4yrs old daughter that’s very busy packking full bag of junks when going out with me, which ends up in my car most times.
You just prepared me for bed.
Thanks
I’m glad Charlotte’s doll was found before she realized it was gone. And I appreciate that this moment of protection was related to the bigger picture of children who aren’t surrounded by loving and protective adults.
Hello. magnificent job. I did not anticipate this. This is a fantastic story. Thanks!
What a touching story.
And I love Amy.
I remember my American Girl doll, she’s in her trunk. Yes I owned every piece that belonged to my doll “Kirsten” this was way before you had the look-a-like dolls & stuff. I remember when I thought I lost her while we were on vacation, and I had a major flip out, not to mention the whole my dad yelling “we paid over 100 dollars for her & more for the clothes and you lost her spiel”. But i found her :) i know how you feel though. & i was just like Charlotte when i was younger, packing everything even though it was too much. I used to pack a backpack every night when i was little in case their was a fire and i can take all my favorite toys with me. (ever since we learned about fire safety in school) lol i still find myself packing a lot in my purse til this day. I usually pack a book with me every wear i go. Everyone looks at me weird, and thinks i’m weird.