A-Playful-Path_DeKoven-web

that was as good at being silly as Silly was, as good at being serious as Serious ever hoped to
be.
And this baby was so good at being Serious – at crying so really hard and needing so much
to be held and fed and changed – that Serious started to wonder if there might be things that
were even more important than getting to play Baby. And day by day the real baby showed
Serious all kinds of reasons not to play Baby, or even to pretend to play Baby, or even to
pretend to be playing to play Baby. Until all that Serious wanted to take really seriously was
the real baby.
And this same baby was so good at being Silly – at, for example, giggling and gurgling and
blowing spit bubbles all at the same time – that Silly started to remember how fun it used
to be to play, how fun it once was to have fun. And day by day the real baby reminded Silly
about the fun of making someone laugh, the fun of tickling and doing silly things and making
silly faces and silly noises,. Until finally Silly thought how silly it was for someone who
could be as silly as Silly to pretend to be too grown up for fun.
So, at the end, this really isn’t a sad story at all. Silly got to be Silly again, in a way that was
more fun than Silly could ever have had by playing Grown-up. And Serious got to be Serious
again, in a way that was even more fun than playing Baby. Until everything was finally
exactly as it should be.
One day, while Baby was all alone, playing one of Baby’s favorite all alone games – a game
Baby called “House,” Baby wondered: wouldn’t it be even more fun to play “Grown-Up?”
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