Ronan has started asking us what we are doing. Again and again and again. Ad infinitum. As in:
Ronan: What are you doing, Dad?
Dad: I’m fixing your lunch.
Ronan: (Immediately.) What are you doing, Dad?
Dad: I’m spreading peanut butter on bread.
Ronan: (Immediately.) What are you doing, Dad?
Dad: I’m spreading strawberry jam on the peanut butter.
Ronan: (Immediately.) What are you doing, Dad?
Dad: I’m pouring you milk.
Ronan: (Immediately.) What are you doing, Dad?
Dad: I’m washing your hands.
Ronan: WHHHHAAATTTTT AAAAAAARRREEEEEE YYYYYYOOOOOUUUUU DDDDDOOOOOOIIIIIIIINNNNGGGG?????????????
Yes, he actually says it like that. Loud and stretched out; not yelling, but kind of because it’s fun, apparently. Almost all day long, he wants to know what we are doing. Every five seconds until he ends up practically yodeling.
I would imagine that even the most patient parent (which my wife will readily tell you, I am not) would go crazy with all the questions. But it’s actually kind of fun. When we get bored of the questions, we just ask right back.
Ronan: What are you doing, Mom?
Terry: I’m sorting the laundry.
Ronan: (Immediately.) What are you doing, Mom?
Terry: I’m sorting the laundry.
Ronan: (Immediately.) What are you doing, Mom?
Terry: WHHHHAAATTTTT AAAAAAARRREEEEEE YYYYYYOOOOOUUUUU DDDDDOOOOOOIIIIIIIINNNNGGGG?????????????
Dad: WHHHHAAATTTTT AAAAAAARRREEEEEE YYYYYYOOOOOUUUUU DDDDDOOOOOOIIIIIIIINNNNGGGG?????????????
Mom and Dad together: WHHHHAAATTTTT AAAAAAARRREEEEEE YYYYYYOOOOOUUUUU DDDDDOOOOOOIIIIIIIINNNNGGGG?????????????
Pause.
Terry: Well, What are you doing?
(Ronan just stands there, looking happy or confused, or both.)
I have no idea where this behavior came from. I’m sure baby books would tell you that this is normal baby behavior as they realize and process their surroundings. But those fuckers don’t have to spend endless hours answering the same question over and over again. They just roll in the money they made from writing baby books.
Last Year in Marienbad is considered by some critics to be brilliant. Others consider it among the worst films ever made. I’ve never seen it, but the script excerpts I’ve read make me think of it often as I narrate my life.
Perhaps, to demonstrate my madness, we’ll do a Garfield Minus Garfield and delete Ronan’s repetitive question:
Dad: I’m fixing your lunch.
Dad: I’m spreading peanut butter on bread.
Dad: I’m spreading strawberry jam on the peanut butter.
Dad: I’m pouring you milk.
Dad: I’m washing your hands.
See? Any sane person would recognize that narrating your everyday life is a sign of psychosis. Now, picture being with me (or Terry) for hours on end, just listening to us narrate the overly mundane activities of our household.
Clearly, Ronan’s screaming of the question is a reaction to his parents walking around the house, babbling to themselves. He’s just asking us “What are you doing?” to keep up the pretense that we’re sane.
]]>I`m a poor lone-some cowboy,
I`m a poor lone-some cowboy,
I`m a poor lone-some cowboy,
And a long way from home.
I ain`t got no brother,
I ain`t got no brother,
I ain`t got no brother,
To ride the range with me.
— Unknown
 
Terry bought Ronan a great little cowboy doll. Very cute. Very age-appropriate. Very fun, right? Wrong.
Perhaps the delivery method was incorrect. Terry left the cowboy in his crib while he slept, thinking he would play with it. Instead he woke up with a lifeless brother, we guess, who creeped Ronan right the fuck out. Poor lone-some cowboy got tossed and tossed hard as soon as Ronan woke up. Ronan threw his sorry butt right out of the crib, and that cowboy ain't welcome here no more.
Actually, we’ve tried to encourage him to rethink the anti-cowboy animosity by leaving poor lone-some cowboy around to play with, but Ronan just beats him up and throws him out of the way for good measure. Leave poor lone-some cowboy in the toy stroller? Haul his ass out and put in a Metrocard. Yes, that’s what I said, a metrocard. Ronan prefers playing with a metrocard to an actual toy.
Poor lone-some cowboy didn’t have a chance. Perhaps the anti-cowboy thing has to do with Ronan’s love of technology. It’s not surprising that with two highly technological parents (we have more computers than rooms in our apartment) he would be interested in technology. Ronan loves watching plane videos. Since our recent trip to visit the grandparents, he can’t wait to go back to the airport, even if he did get a little scared when the plane home took off. He’s obsessed with planes. Every sighting leads to shouts of “Plane! Plane! See? Right there!!” One night he wouldn’t go to sleep because he was watching the moon, so it could be astronomical as well.
But why hate on the cowboy? That’s a question we will probably never know. Perhaps he was trampled by a steer in a previous life. Perhaps he was left for dead in a hanging, only to live to hunt down those responsible. Perhaps once he lived by the laws of the West and poor lone-some cowboy didn’t.
Or perhaps the cowboy doll is actually a little creepy, and we just can’t see it from the perspective of a two-year-old. Whatever the reason is, that damned cowboy is never going to be welcome on our ranch.
]]>
This attractive institution is our local library. Yes, that's barbed wire along the top. It’s actually a nice place, despite looking like a prison. It seems to be a popular gathering place for residents. The library has a great selection of children’s books, and Ronan gets free books for attending reading sessions, where a librarian reads books to him and other children while their parents ignore what’s happening and talk amongst themselves.
The Dyker Library location was selected in a poll of Dyker residents, who wanted it to be where it is in 1968. It opened in 1974, which was a good year to be in the concrete business, because architects loved concrete in 1974, although they had less artistic creativity than, say, the Romans.
However, I have two questions:
1.) Did the Brooklyn Public Library “spruce” this up by committee to make it as absolutely foreboding as possible? Is this the picture they show people who fail to return their books on time? I can just imagine a library cop (if they exist) saying, “If you don’t pay your fines, we’ll send you to Dyker!”
Dyker was designed by Daniel Laitin. All I know about Daniel Laitin is that he was born in 1909 and died in 2008. I’m assuming those are his life dates, since that’s the only Daniel Laitin I could find who died in Brooklyn. I’m assuming he died of embarrassment that the Brooklyn Public Library turned his creation into a prison.
Seriously, what is the point of the barbed wire on the roof? Did someone break into the roof between 1974 and 2008, so BPL got a committee together and they said, “We’ll show ‘em! No one will ever steal library books through our roof again! Razor wire for all!”
The library on the other side of town, which, I grant you, is another story taller, does not have barbed wire. The main branch, which has many stories, has not one strand of barbed wire. So it’s a one-story thing. Perhaps the barbed wire causes intruders to fall onto the wrought-iron fence.
Daniel is either laughing or rolling over in his grave.
2.) What the fuck is up with parents who use story time to talk and conduct business? Do you mind? Could you shut off your phone for the ten minutes the librarian is reading The Snowy Day? Could you not discuss your hairdresser/work/lack of work/etc. and just pretend to pay attention? Is reading time just babysitting time for you?
Please shut up and sit down. I swear to God, I’ll throw you in the barbed wire.
]]>
As we move from babydom into toddlerhood, Ronan’s vocabulary has exploded recently. He comes up with words that I’m not sure I have ever used with him, meaning he’s listening to us much more closely than I ever imagined. Here’s a few of his favorites (and by that I mean my favorites) with translations:
Big Hug – We don’t have any “small hugs” or “medium hugs” or even just plain “hugs” in our home. They are all big. I realized that most of his books use this expression in a complete sentence. For Ronan, it’s just “Big hug! Big Hug!” usually while we’re heavily occupied with something else. Most popular and rare are the three-family member hugs.
Ostrich – What Old McDonald had on his farm. Terry’s father thankfully found the sound an ostrich makes.
No no no no no no no no no! – I do not want apple juice, only milk. Ronan hardly ever drinks anything but milk.
Plane! – Look! Up in the sky! It’s an airplane!
Done! – I have completed the meal and wish to leave the table. (Accompanied with hand motions that look like an orchestra conductor.)
Read a book! – Let’s read a book together. Usually Richard Scarry’s Big Book of Endless, Never Ending, Perfunctory Lists of Objects.
One Minute! – I require more time (in the bath, in the potty, for window gazing, for play.) Equal to ten to fifteen minutes.
Watch TV, watch TV! – I would like to watch television.
Watch planes, watch planes! – Dad, please surf to airplane videos on your computer.
Itschy, Itschy! – I have an itch.
Beans! – I would like more food. (This is fading fast, if not already gone.) This is because for a while he would eat nothing but beans.
Pleastz! – Please. Accompanied by shaking his head “yes.”
Where did all the people go? – I enjoyed the recent visitors, why did they have to leave?
Leesha! –I miss Mom’s friend Alicia.
Papa T. T. – My father, Ronan’s grandfather, is named Terry also. (So I’m married to Terry and my father’s name is Terry. They’re both nicknames, so there’s nothing Freudian about that.) For some reason, he decided he wanted Ronan to call him Papa T. T. (which my brother quickly changed to “Pop a Tittie.”) After we all laughed at him, or behind him,it turns out that that was such a great name for Ronan to pronounce, all the grandparents are Papa T. T.; grandmothers too.
You! – Me. As in, when Ronan sees photos of himself, instead of exclaiming, “That’s me!”he yells “You!” And then we say, “Me!” and he says “You!” and then we say “You!” and point to him and Ronan says “You?” and looks a little confused. Thenwe try to explain that me is for yourself and you is for others. And then I take migraine medicine.
“Wake up!” – Usually yelled when I’m deeply asleep and everyone else is up. May include a poke.
“Poke!” – Ronan likes to point out when he pokes people.
More sounds are available at his Soundboard.
]]>So Ronan had debatable levels of anemia, and doctors couldn’t agree on how to treat it. One pediatrician suggested we increase spinach and lentils and other iron-rich foods. But that wasn’t the first doctor we saw. The first doctor ordered iron drops.
If you didn’t click on that link, the short story is that the iron drops caused Ronan a lot of pain, especially when he pooed, and eventually he needed a laxative. So the Pediatric GI we saw put him on Miralax. The chemical name for Miralax is Polyethylene Glycol (PEG). Our regular pediatrician had recommended this, but we wanted to consult a specialist. Ronan hates the specialist because his first visit was quite painful as he performed a comprehensive physical. (I’ll leave the details to your imagination.)
We gave him the generic Miralax, which was cheaper with our prescription plan. We had three pediatricians recommending it, so I was pretty confident that this was an okay drug. “I give it to my own kids.” One of the pediatricians told me.
It’s probably not an okay drug for anyone. Well, the drug is fine, but the manufacturing process is not. Part of the process of making PEG involves 1,4-dioxane, a known carcinogen. Even the CDC says it’s not particularly healthy, and may cause cancer or liver and kidney damage.
Yipes. YIPES! (I’d swear here but people have told me I swear too much.)
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics goes further, in a report that was covered by the Washington Post and other newspapers. 1,4-dioxane is banned in the European Union.
None of the three pediatricians knew anything about the CDC report, the Washington Post article or the EU ban.
I contacted the manufacturer of the generic PEG. They responded, basically, by saying that PEG is not approved for use by children, and if we were giving it to our 2-year-old, than any cancer is just not their damn fault. They probably left out the “damn.” They also claimed their levels of 1.4-dioxane is within FDA limits.
The CDC basically disavowed their own web page, saying that they couldn’t state that PEG for children was bad. Or good. “You’ll have to draw your own conclusions.” They offered to have a CDC chemist call me to explain how and why the warning page was written. I’m still waiting for that call.
So we’re freaking out. Ronan is a happy and healthy baby, but if he gets liver or kidney damage somewhere down the line, we will hold ourselves responsible for not checking into the real consequences of PEG. Or maybe move to Europe, where they seem to take these things more seriously.
]]>
Terry made up this flowchart to help us next Fourth of July.
Ronan came down with a cold. Slight fever and chills and severe congestion. I’m convinced it’s because I bought non-refundable ICE AGE tickets a few hours before we discovered he was sick, but Terry insists that the tickets have nothing to do with it. His illness pretty much killed any hope of seeing the fireworks.
In our relatively new digs (11 months and counting) nestled between Dyker Heights and Bensonhurst, we’re experiencing our first Fourth of July, which means copious amounts of illegal and highly combustible fireworks. A few minutes after we put him down for the night the neighborhood sounded like a war zone – the pop-pop-pop of skyrockets everywhere.
While he seemed immediately quiet, and therefore asleep, I decided to check on Ronan. I’m glad I did – as I felt around for his head, a scared “Mom?” came out of the other end of the crib. Ronan had his pillow over his face and was gripping it tightly with both arms and legs. He was pretty shook up as we had left his window open because of the heat, and the fireworks sounded like gunshots. He was a little scared.
So I propped him up in the window, and we watched what were probably hundreds of thousands of dollars of fireworks go off all over the neighborhood. His terror soon turned to delight. Every time I thought it was over, it started again. It’s not like any other neighborhood I’ve lived in – this was full-blown, multicolored, un-ending professional-looking, 500-feet-in-the-air fireworks.
Terry took him outside while I locked the door, and we took him in a blanket around the neighborhood, watching the display. For a minute I thought we somehow were seeing the Macy’s display over the Hudson. But then I realized that Dyker Heights takes its Independence Day pretty seriously.
While we were out, we saw the remains of previous shootings lying in the street, their still smoking remains dragged up the street by cars, streaming little sparks as they went. Even though he’s only two I began to worry that he would try to set these things off when he’s older.
He flinched a few times from the noise but generally he was terribly excited over the pyrotechnics. He kept yelling “Firework!” every time one went off. As the clock reached 10 PM he didn’t want to go home.
When we did go home, he lay in our bed for a while, still looking for fireworks. We called Grandpa TT and Grandma to tell them what happened, but despite waking Grandpa TT up, he was too excited to tell them anything. He does love to listen on the phone.
As I type this, he’s rolling around in his crib, listening for the telltale sound of a mortar lobbing another star shell skyward. Which is better than being afraid of them, but I fear he will get little sleep tonight…
]]>Ronan has begun the wonderful part of toddlerhood where he forms complex sentences, events that delight and charm his parents but probably confuse casual passerby.
Whether it’s jumping up to shout “E-X-I-T” during a movie, or exclaiming “Oh no!” watching an interstitial for a news program that showed the Hudson landing of US Air flight 1549, his exclamations are wildly entertaining to his parents and grandparents. I’m not sure they are as exciting to other people, so I try not to share them too much in casual conversation.
We’ve all met those parents who think their kid is the most entertaining, but really, they’re not. It’s kind of annoying, if I remember my pre-parenting days. Sometimes I think my brother just barely tolerates my endless stories of accomplishments.
Now that I’m one of them, it’s hard not to delight in everything Ronan does, even when he’s being obstreperous. (Like the other night, when he wanted to watch TV and we wanted him to eat dinner. Five seconds and one cracker later, he shouted, “DONE!” despite not eating hardly anything. I had to give him points for inventiveness. However, I’m painfully aware that you probably have no idea why that was so wonderful. You just had to be there.)
As he learns to put together words, I am amazed by his vocabulary and often wonder where he got that word or this word. He still occasionally speaks in complete gibberish, and that’s cute too.
He also sometimes forgets words, or won’t use words. He loves the idea of telephones, calling his paternal grandparents almost every day since their recent visit, and now he wants to call Terry’s friends as well. But once on the phone he won’t speak. He just listens.
Often I forget that he won’t always say he needs something, even if he’s in trouble. After a long day of playground, library, and errands, we were returning from the store. I had a heavy load of groceries in one hand and Ronan’s hand in the other. We were half a block from home.
I know we made it across the street okay because I checked him visually once we crossed the street. I took his hand again when we crossed the parking lot for the local pharmacy.
And that must have been when I stopped visual contact, just to think about the groceries and a way to shift them around with one hand so they didn’t feel so heavy.
As I mentally, physically and visually adjusted the grocery bags, a young man of about twelve or thirteen came up to me.
“Sir, your kid’s pants are down.”
He said this with a nonchalance that indicated that he often encounters depantsed toddlers on our street. That nonchalance led me to my first thought, which was, “What the hell are you talking about?”
In a split-second, I turned to Ronan to find his shorts had fallen off. He had been walking for about five minutes or so without saying anything. Two fingers in his mouth, he just kept walking even though he was having some difficulty keeping up with his ankles effectively shackled together.
I dropped the grocery bags on the street and pulled up his pants. “Oh, pants are down!” Ronan said. And then he giggled.
I’m sure this entry will be the first one pulled when he’s old enough to read this blog, but he was sure cute just mildly accepting that his shorts were off. He just kept walking.
I’m immensely proud of him, even when he’s thinking up ways to get out of dinner to watch TV, but I hope he never loses his good nature. I have no idea where he got it from – certainly not from me – but it’s wonderful to experience.
And, I hope you don’t mind all the gushing parent stories either.
]]>Now, with my first true week off since August 2008, I can sit and relax and look back on how we survived. In a word: Television.
It’s not for nothing that one of my Master’s papers was on Children’s Television. I now can investigate fully the shows Ronan watches, and without them we wouldn’t have made it through this tough year. I can’t tell you the number of times Terry called to say, “I’m exhausted, so I put on the television.” This would often be followed with an apology, because I think everyone who knows me knows that I abhor television. (Of course, I’m kidding! I love television. I’m not sure why Terry apologizes for television, other than every parent who succumbs to the idiot box feels like they have failed in some small way.)
I remember the exact moment I made a decision on how much television Ronan would watch. I was thirteen years old, and I had not yet met Terry, who was also in the eighth grade in another state. Ronan wasn’t even a gleam in my eye. But our first landlords in Queens, New York, had their first child, and declared he would not watch television while he was still in the womb. Six months later they had the only Betamax tape I have ever seen in my life – a video of Bugs Bunny. The irony of declaring a television ban and breaking it almost immediately deeply impressed me. Right there and then I decided I would not ban television from my child’s life.
Of course, I married Terry and we had Ronan, who is wonderful, and a bunch of eggheads decided that television was bad for anyone, but ESPECIALLY bad for children under two. So Ronan didn’t get to watch much television until he was 18 months old, when we finally gave up on the damn television ban and felt like the worst parents in the world.
That’s because banning television is much like flossing and exercising daily and not eating that last piece of chocolate cake. Yes, we all know it’s for the best. Yeah, we all still patiently while the dentist tells us how terrible cavities and gum disease result from not brushing six or seven hours a day (or whatever lecture you hate most, you fill in the blank.) But then we all fail to follow that prescription after a while. And then guilt sets in.
So, we were feeling very guilty, but we’re very tired. Clearly, very tired won out. This is because despite the eggheads warnings, the damn idiot box actually allows you to sit in one place for between 30 and 60 minutes, depending on the length of the program. And that’s a good thing. I think all the eggheads researching Children’s Television should be required to have children, and to post their children’s viewing times at the end of their research. “Studies show that more than 54.40 minutes of television per child per day results in the death of .3492 brain cells per minute…but gosh, Jimmy and and Jamie just love it, and I can rest for an hour.”
Not that we’re not screening (and by we, I mean Terry) what Ronan watches. Hopefully, we haven’t started him on the 50,000 murders we all see on TV during our lifetime. Another child-rearing friend turned us on to Nickelodeon’s Noggin network. Most of the shows come from this cable channel; it has no commercials (other than promos for the shows). We time-shift all the shows, and Terry watches all of them in fast-forward. I never do that because each show only has about 20 episodes, and I remember when my two-year-old cousin watch Free Willy every afternoon during the week I stayed with them. Sometimes we watched it twice. I liked it the first time but by the fourteenth viewing I began to fucking hate that movie. So I know Ronan won’t really care if he’s seen something before. Plus, Terry is a much better parent than I am. But we all knew that.
Anyway, here’s the shows we watch with Ronan regularly, and some shows that everyone assumes we watch regularly, but don’t, because they suck.
Sesame Street – This veritable children’s classic has reduced production from 125 episodes a year to just 30. Which means we watch the same episodes a lot. That explained why zombie Michael Jeter keeps showing up, even though he’s been dead since 2003. Sesame Street is still interesting for adults, and teaches lots of good stuff on mutliculturalism, numbers, alphabet, and models good behavior. So it’s a shock to me that fucking Dora the Explorer has crushed it in the ratings, causing the reduction in production. Those of you with fond memories will be quick to blame poor Elmo. The show has been criticized for promoting the red muppet too much. Plus, poor cookie monster has been the victim of the anti-obesity movement, because we all know that obesity in children has nothing to do with icky High Fructose Corn Syrup being added to fucking everything (if you’re eating spaghetti and meatballs with a coke while you read this, guess what, you’re probably eating corn in everything on your plate) and is entirely the fault of a manic blue muppet who has bad manners. Yeah, it’s definitely the muppet.
Anyway, Sesame Street has been translated into fourteen locales. I would really love it if PBS showed the other versions sometime; I would love it if Ronan could watch Ireland’s Sesame Tree or South Africa’s Takalani Sesame. But for some reason we can’t view the other countries’ versions. I blame Jesse Helms, who before he died got all bent out of shape that an HIV-Positive muppet joined the cast of Takalani Sesame. I bet Sesame Workshop is afraid their government funding will dry up if Michelle Bachman learns that other countries have Sesame Street.
Still, if sucks that Dora is such a powerhouse. Sesame Street isn’t as good as the old show, but it’s still witty and fun, and Ronan enjoys it very much.
Little Bear – Little Bear could be Ronan’s favorite show, until he is old enough to realize that his old man thinks it’s his favorite show, and then he will hate it just because I think he likes it. Or something like that.
Little Bear is about a family of bears with incredibly unimaginative names (Little Bear, Mother Bear and Father Bear) that they have apparently had their entire lives. In one episode, Father Bear and Mother Bear refer to carving their initials in a tree when they dated, and Little Bear finds the tree. Damned if the initials, carved before their child was born, aren’t “F.B. + M.B.” Telling kids that your destiny is already decided, to hell with the American Dream. (And no, this show was made before the current economic crisis.)
Little Bear has similarly imaginatively named friends, Cat, Duck, Hen, and “No Feet” (a snake.) They have various adventures that usually involve exercising their imaginations, so I can only assume the writers used up all their imagination on the plot and had none left over for the character names. Despite the character names, the show is very well written, and for cable TV animation made in Asia (no insult intended) it’s actually quite ornate.
It’s Ronan’s favorite show because he laughs and laughs at the exploits of Little Bear and his friends. I actually prefer to watch him during Little Bear episodes, because he’s so much fun to watch. He just giggles through the whole show.
EXCEPT – if there’s a whale. Little Bear encounters a whale about every three episodes, and those big muthas just freak Ronan right the fuck out. I’m talking full on crying with parental comfort freak-outs. This actually impresses me, because the show reaches the extremes of emotions in our kid. Grover does not make my kid laugh and cry.
Dora the Explorer – I do not like Dora the Explorer. This is a terrible show and we don’t let Ronan watch it. It freaks me out that it’s the most popular children’s show. About the only redeeming factor is that it teaches kids Spanish. However, it does this in the most brain dead way. Every goddamned episode is the same. There’s a location that Dora and her best friend/pet monkey must get to. There’s an animal they must talk to in repetitive Spanish, because that animal only understands Spanish. They must flee from some miserable fox named Swiper, who can be easily dissuaded simply by yelling “Swiper! No swiping!!” leading me to believe the poor animal was serially abused as a child by a parent who only said “NO!” all the time. Swiper NEVER steals anything, and his character never evolves. After Swiper’s easily avoided non-attack, Dora and the monkey then flee another creature (Cougar, Rain Cloud, Dick Chaney) by outrunning it or shouting at it in Spanish. After avoiding/driving off/hiding from the bad creature, hugs all around and a chorus of “WE DID IT!” which is odd, since Dora and her monkey…. (Terry won’t appreciate where this joke is going, so I’ll stop there.)
Dora has no imagination, no redeeming social value, and no art, so clearly it became the most popular children’s television show in the history of the world (or something.) I fucking hate this show. They have the same show with Diego, who is a the male Dora. Parents were recently outraged that Dora’s new show, which ages the Explorer to fourteen, aged Dora to fourteen. Because nobody wants to see the same scripts with a fourteen-year-old shouting “Swiper! No swiping!!” Not even people who like Dora. And there are a lot of those, further confirming I am completely out of touch with modern America.
Google Translation:
Dora la Exploradora - No me gusta Dora la Exploradora. Este es un terrible espectáculo y no dejar que Ronan verlo. Se me fanáticos que es el más popular programa infantil. El único factor positivo es que enseña a los niños en español. Sin embargo, lo hace en la forma más con muerte cerebral. Cada maldita episodio es el mismo. Hay un lugar que Dora y su mejor amigo / animal debe llegar al mono. Hay un animal que debe hablar con repetitivas en español, porque los animales que sólo entiende el español. Deben huir de algún zorro llamado Swiper miserables, que pueden ser fácilmente disuadidos simplemente gritando "Swiper! No swiping!! "Me hacen pensar que los pobres animales en serie fue abusado de niño por un padre que sólo dice" ¡NO! "Todo el tiempo. NUNCA Swiper roba algo, y su personaje nunca evoluciona. Después Swiper fácilmente evitarse no ataque, Dora y el mono entonces huir otra criatura (Cougar, nube de lluvia, Dick Chaney) outrunning por lo que a gritos o en español. Después de evitar / conducción off / ocultamiento de la mala criatura, abrazos y todo un coro de "¡Lo hicimos!", Que es extraño, ya que Dora y su mono .... (Terry no apreciar que esta broma va, por lo que dejaremos ahí.)
Dora no tiene imaginación, no el canje de valor social, y no el arte, por lo que claramente se convirtió en el más popular de televisión para niños en la historia del mundo (o algo así.) Yo odio este maldito espectáculo. Tienen el mismo espectáculo con Diego, que es el macho Dora. Los padres fueron recientemente Dora indignado que el nuevo espectáculo, que el Explorador de Windows para las edades de catorce años, a catorce años de edad Dora. Porque nadie quiere ver a los mismos guiones, con catorce años de edad, gritando "Swiper! No swiping! "Ni siquiera las personas que como Dora. Y hay un montón de ellos, además de confirmar estoy completamente fuera de contacto con la América moderna.
Lazytown – This bizarre, high budget show stars Magnús Scheving, Icelandic champion gymnast. I know what you’re thinking – Iceland and gymnastics? Thankfully, we don’t have to worry about more Magnús Schevings popping up, as I think he is the only Icelandic champion gymnast.
While Terry doesn’t like Lazytown, I am utterly captivated by it, because in every episode I relive the worst parts of middle school. Magnús Scheving plays Sporticus, a jock who is so fucking awesome he doesn’t walk anywhere, he fucking flies. When he’s not chilling in his airship (!) above the town, Sporticus spends hours hiding trampolines all over Lazytown, which has a population of seven people, but houses for many, many more. Whenever someone shouts “Candyman!” three times, Sporticus pops out of nowhere, bounces in with the help of a trampoline, and kills them. (Whoops, wrong movie.)
Sporticus bounces and jumps and spins everywhere, because he eats apples, which he calls “Sports Candy” because no one in Iceland has ever fucking seen an apple, that place is so goddamn frozen. He is a hero to all the kids in Lazytown, all four of them, only one of which is human. Stephanie (Julianna Rose Mauriello, I looked her name up) was caught in a freak cotton candy accident, so she wears pink clothing to match her pink hair. Actually, the producer (Magnús Scheving , again) wanted to emphasize that she’s a girl, and Sporticus is a boy, so she wears pink and he wears blue, because kids may think the one with the steroid-enhanced arms is female. Or something.
Anyway, Sporticus beats the shit out of Robbie Rotten, who I empathize with greatly, because obviously everyone hates him, since he lives in the sewer. Robbie had many despicable traits, such as being an intellectual and also the only talented actor in the cast. So obviously Sporticus must humiliate poor Robbie in every episode. Why Robbie just doesn’t build a death ray and nuke the town is beyond me. After all, the entire town, including Sporticus, is so stupid that with only seven residents in the whole place, Robbie can dress in a disguise every episode and no one will fucking notice. Plus Robbie gets shit from Sporticus because he’s so thin, he’s the only man on the planet who can wear a five-button suit and made it work. To further indicate that Robbie is ugly and needs to be kept in the sewer, he’s the only human character who wears prosthetic makeup that makes him look like Max Headroom’s hairy cousin.
Every plot in Lazytown is the same. Robbie overhears something that gives him an idea to get back at Sporticus. He dons a disguise, despite only seven people living in the town, and attempts to get the kids to turn against Sporticus. Stephanie figures out Robbie’s plan but no one will listen to her except Sporticus. Stephanie figures out how to unmask Robbie. Sporticus beats Robbie like a red-headed stepchild, and then Stephanie and Sporticus dance. End of show.
Now, with my new degree in Media Studies, I might say that the relationship between the 14-year-old Stephanie (eleven? Fifteen? Julianna Rose Mauriello was seventeen at the time the show was shot) and the 40-year-old Magnús Scheving is creepy. There’s some sort of daddy figure missing from Stephanie’s life, and Sporticus is always there for her. However, I’m terrified that a pissed-off Magnús Scheving might come from Iceland just to kick my fat ass, so I’ll just say that it’s a beautiful and appropriate relationship and leave it at that.
Because I was so tortured in middle school, I grieve every episode for Robbie. Terry won’t appreciate my analysis of the gay subtext of his character, but the dude is definitely that theatre kid who liked Streisand. The whole point of the show is that it’s okay to beat homosexuals. Or something. You’ll just have to watch it for yourself.
Well, I came back to the blog with a very long blog this week. Hopefully I will make another post next week. The outlook is positive on restarting the blog; I’m off for the summer and then I have double staff meetings during the week, so I’ll need something to do when I’m bored. I hope you enjoyed my take on children’s shows. There are many others that I’ll get to in a another post.
]]>
So things are better than they were. We’re starting to slow down a bit, and I don’t feel like we’re in the midst of a constant crisis like we’ve been living since July. Terry and I have switched roles; she’s a stay-at-home Mom and I’m working.
The job is going okay; it’s teaching computers at a private school in Brooklyn. The kids are awesome; the faculty is really nice and very professional. I’m in night school for a Master’s in Television at Brooklyn College, and I haven’t posted in such a long time because I’ve been so busy. Sorry.
Ronan’s new word – “Happy! Happy! Happy!” which sounds like “Hoppy” when he says it. It’s great fun and gets Terry and I chanting “Happy! Happy! Happy!” right back at him. He seems to be speeding on the way to full-blown toddler. Our baby days are over.
The long stretch from Wednesday night to Saturday morning when I don’t see him because I’m in class at Brooklyn College wears on me. Thankfully it’s only one semester, and it some ways it works out because I’m not as tired on Saturday because unlike during the week I can sleep a little later. Terry has been wonderful letting me sleep in. Sleep doesn’t cure my missing Terry and Ronan.
I’m not in love with the new apartment, but Ronan has his own room now and we have a lot more space. The office is still too crowded. We left my office chair in the living room temporarily but now we’ve put up bookcases in the hallway and now we won’t be able to move it out without carrying it over our heads. Maybe we’ll have to leave it in the living room. It will be an oddly decorated living room.
Hopefully now that I’ve settled into my job and we’re mostly unpacked I can update the blog more. If I don’t, I’m just busy. Don’t worry about us, we’re okay.
]]>Determining how much food to feed him is something akin to winning a horse race. I’ve learned a lot about how much to give him with the solid food, and he always changes the rules and surprises me. He liked beans, until we started giving them to him regularly. Now he ignores them. He hated Dr. Broner’s spinach pancakes until he didn’t. He likes ice cream only if dogs eat it first.
I try to give him only the food I think he will eat, maybe a little less. Still, what he eats on Monday is no indication of what he will eat on Tuesday. I think we’re making progress; at first he wouldn’t eat any solid food, including cheerios (Mothers everywhere: “What?!? Won’t eat cheerios! Perish the thought!). Now he’s eating mostly the foods we eat, with additional smashing, ripping or slicing, and instead of six jars of pureed baby food, he’s only eating less than two. Soon he will off the purees and eating solid food entirely. It’s the end of babyhood and the beginning of toddlerhood. God help us.
]]>