Taking my three-year-old to daycare this morning, with my iPod on Shuffle, "Good for Your Soul" by Oingo Boingo came on.
Me: Hey, it's Jack Skellington!
TYO: Huh?
Me: You know, Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas? This man is his singing voice. He sings his songs for him. His name is Danny Elfman.
TYO: Where's he standing?
Me: ... Good question.
Showing posts with label kids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kids. Show all posts
Oct 8, 2007
Oct 3, 2007
Circular Reasoning on the Road
Three Year-Old: I want "We're in this Together."
Me: I don't have my iPod, do you want to hear Radio Disney? *tunes XMRadio*
TYO: Can I hear "Crazy Frog?"
Me: No, it's radio, honey. I can't make it play a certain song, like on the iPod.
TYO: Can I hear "Stroller Town?"
Me: No. Honey. It's ... look, it's not like the iPod, I can't make a song play. We just have to listen to whatever it plays, okay?
TYO: Okay. ... Can I hear "Podsafe Christmas?"
Me: No! Please, honey, I can't make it play a specific song! It plays whatever it wants to play, like ... well, like a radio. Do you understand?
TYO: Uh huh. ... How about Wiggles?
Me: *counts slowly in head* Honey--
At this point, Radio Disney begins playing "Crazy Frog."
TYO: *grins triumphantly* See?
Me: I don't have my iPod, do you want to hear Radio Disney? *tunes XMRadio*
TYO: Can I hear "Crazy Frog?"
Me: No, it's radio, honey. I can't make it play a certain song, like on the iPod.
TYO: Can I hear "Stroller Town?"
Me: No. Honey. It's ... look, it's not like the iPod, I can't make a song play. We just have to listen to whatever it plays, okay?
TYO: Okay. ... Can I hear "Podsafe Christmas?"
Me: No! Please, honey, I can't make it play a specific song! It plays whatever it wants to play, like ... well, like a radio. Do you understand?
TYO: Uh huh. ... How about Wiggles?
Me: *counts slowly in head* Honey--
At this point, Radio Disney begins playing "Crazy Frog."
TYO: *grins triumphantly* See?
Aug 31, 2007
The David Lynch of the Dollhouse
My 3-year-old daughter is a bit ... avant-garde, shall we say?
S: Who wants to go down the slide?
Me (voicing Ken, I think): Oh, I do, I do!
S: Who wants to ride on the turtle?
Me (voicing Shaggy): Like, I do!
S: Who wants to go in the turtle?
Me: ... What?
S: Dress up!
Me: Oh, okay. (voicing Shaggy) I do! Now I'm the turtle!
S: Let's open the turtle.
Me: Okay.
S: What's in it?
Me: Look, it's Shaggy!
S: NO. It's a wonderful present from my mother and father!
Me: ... Wrapped in a turtle?
S: Yes.
S: Who wants to go down the slide?
Me (voicing Ken, I think): Oh, I do, I do!
S: Who wants to ride on the turtle?
Me (voicing Shaggy): Like, I do!
S: Who wants to go in the turtle?
Me: ... What?
S: Dress up!
Me: Oh, okay. (voicing Shaggy) I do! Now I'm the turtle!
S: Let's open the turtle.
Me: Okay.
S: What's in it?
Me: Look, it's Shaggy!
S: NO. It's a wonderful present from my mother and father!
Me: ... Wrapped in a turtle?
S: Yes.
Aug 21, 2007
Scales
I haven't worked out the precise mathematics of it all, but I'm pretty sure that the metabolism (and therefore screech-producing power) of six-to-seven-year-old girls increases at a rate equal to the square of the number of girls present. There may be an additional variable influence involving exactly how tired the observer is, number of cupcakes consumed, Gwen Stefani, trampolines, and other factors that students at Caltech are doubtless writing theses on at this very moment.
Let me explain:
Having watched my wife raise two girls, and having attended a fair number of birthday parties at which packs of small girls and boys ran around yelling and having a good time, I spent last week not too terribly concerned about my oldest daughter's impending party.
Correction: Impending slumber party. The distinction, as it happens, is quite significant.
First of all, the majority of parties that our kids have attended (or that we have thrown) have generally involved the parents of the other children remaining in attendance. Of course, in the "slumber" variant, the parents generally run off and have a good time. (Now that I think about it, they probably spent a lot of that time laughing at our foolish notions about keeping their kids under control.)
The corollary of that factor, however, is much more important: the children know that their parents aren't around, and aren't going to be around for some time. The practical upshot of this is that the girls, whose running around and shrieking would soon irritate their own parents into action (or at least those parents that I would care to associate with), are suddenly thrust into a sort of power vacuum, allowing for near infinite expansion of their "Shriek Horizon."
While investigating this fascinating phenomenon, I was looking for a graph of noise levels, in order to estimate the volume of the sound in question, and I was startled to find that I was not the first to approach this from a scientific standpoint:
I'm not kidding here. These kids exhibited hyperactivity at a level that I'm pretty sure Einstein proved wasn't possible. And there were only five of them (six if you count my three-year-old, and god help you if you don't.) And they didn't calm down ever.
My wife got her sweet revenge on me for "letting" her plan the party. At 11:30 or so, she popped in some earplugs and went to bed. I, on the other hand, got to get up every five minutes or so and explain the concept of sleep to children who really weren't buying into my pitch, until, finally, I had to sit in a chair and will them to sleep with sheer stubbornness, all the while contemplating the irony of the term "slumber party."
Let me explain:
Having watched my wife raise two girls, and having attended a fair number of birthday parties at which packs of small girls and boys ran around yelling and having a good time, I spent last week not too terribly concerned about my oldest daughter's impending party.
Correction: Impending slumber party. The distinction, as it happens, is quite significant.
First of all, the majority of parties that our kids have attended (or that we have thrown) have generally involved the parents of the other children remaining in attendance. Of course, in the "slumber" variant, the parents generally run off and have a good time. (Now that I think about it, they probably spent a lot of that time laughing at our foolish notions about keeping their kids under control.)
The corollary of that factor, however, is much more important: the children know that their parents aren't around, and aren't going to be around for some time. The practical upshot of this is that the girls, whose running around and shrieking would soon irritate their own parents into action (or at least those parents that I would care to associate with), are suddenly thrust into a sort of power vacuum, allowing for near infinite expansion of their "Shriek Horizon."
While investigating this fascinating phenomenon, I was looking for a graph of noise levels, in order to estimate the volume of the sound in question, and I was startled to find that I was not the first to approach this from a scientific standpoint:
I'm not kidding here. These kids exhibited hyperactivity at a level that I'm pretty sure Einstein proved wasn't possible. And there were only five of them (six if you count my three-year-old, and god help you if you don't.) And they didn't calm down ever.
My wife got her sweet revenge on me for "letting" her plan the party. At 11:30 or so, she popped in some earplugs and went to bed. I, on the other hand, got to get up every five minutes or so and explain the concept of sleep to children who really weren't buying into my pitch, until, finally, I had to sit in a chair and will them to sleep with sheer stubbornness, all the while contemplating the irony of the term "slumber party."
Aug 9, 2007
An Open and Shut Case
3 Year Old: (Standing in hallway after bedtime) My sister's out of bed.
6 Year Old: (Also standing in hallway) I am not!
6 Year Old: (Also standing in hallway) I am not!
Jul 16, 2007
"Books! And cleverness!"
My oldest daughter, at the ripe old age of six, has recently finished reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (apologies to purists who know it should be "Philosopher's Stone").
Six.
My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure I didn't read anything of novel length until I was nine or ten.
She wanted to watch the (godawful) movie of Sorcerer's Stone, but not until she'd finished the book. Once she sat down and watched it, she was able to talk about differences between the movie and the book.
At six, I would have had a hard time distinguishing between cinematic and comic book versions of Star Wars.
Okay, fine. The kid is smarter than me. It's not like I haven't already admitted that. And she loves to read, which is great. She sometimes sneaks extra reading in during schooltime, and after she's supposed to be sleeping at night.
Now, I did the same thing, but not until I was considerably older. I'm not sure about her mom. She is a bookworm too, though, so she was probably reading Jane Austen when I was reading The Mouse and the Motorcycle.
So we have a little Hermione in the family (though not an insufferable know-it-all, thank god). Now if we can manage to keep the younger one from going all Slytherin on us, we'll be set.
Six.
My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure I didn't read anything of novel length until I was nine or ten.
She wanted to watch the (godawful) movie of Sorcerer's Stone, but not until she'd finished the book. Once she sat down and watched it, she was able to talk about differences between the movie and the book.
At six, I would have had a hard time distinguishing between cinematic and comic book versions of Star Wars.
Okay, fine. The kid is smarter than me. It's not like I haven't already admitted that. And she loves to read, which is great. She sometimes sneaks extra reading in during schooltime, and after she's supposed to be sleeping at night.
Now, I did the same thing, but not until I was considerably older. I'm not sure about her mom. She is a bookworm too, though, so she was probably reading Jane Austen when I was reading The Mouse and the Motorcycle.
So we have a little Hermione in the family (though not an insufferable know-it-all, thank god). Now if we can manage to keep the younger one from going all Slytherin on us, we'll be set.
Jul 11, 2007
"Raised on promises..."
I took my daughters to the American Girl store down at the Grove in LA last week.
For those unfamiliar with the concept, American Girl dolls are very expensive toys whose primary attribute seems to be cache with the 5-9 year-old girl demographic. It certainly isn't the quality of the toys, which are nothing special, and are vastly overpriced. But, hey, they're only little girls for a while, and these things make them happy, right?
In this case, we made fairly modest purchases. Each kid got an animal friend of one of the American Girls. My six year old got "Coconut," a Westie-looking dog. My three year old got some kind of black cat named "Licorice." These animals are basically hunks of unmoving plastic, covered in fur. They can't even turn their heads. But the kids love em. At $19 apiece, I'm kind of flabbergasted at the crap quality, but whatever.
The American Girl stores (there are only a handful of them in the U.S.) are the complete experience for kids. There are huge displays with the latest dolls and accessories. There are videos playing in rooms displaying the various historical period dolls (American Revolution, WWII, etc.) There's even a theater with some kind of stage show that, thankfully, my kids didn't notice.
What they did notice, or rather what my six year old already knew about, was the cafe in the store. It's more like a restaurant, really. An expensive restaurant. The difference is that here, the dolls are treated like part of your party. They get their own seats. They get some (empty) dishes put in front of them. It's quite cute, and the kids love it.
But the food is atrocious.
The menu looks nice, the dishes sound good, but someone in the American Girl organization has decided that, while sugar and spice and everything nice is fine for the rest of the store, the cafe will concentrate more on salt. And I mean a LOT of salt.
I'm the kind of guy who loves salt. Chips, fries, you name it, it's better salty. But I have finally found the restaurant that only serves food for the "vinegar, sea salt, and hydrochloric acid"-flavored chips crowd.
Two bites into a chicken sandwich and I could feel my kidneys beginning to shut down. They should have a warning posted for people with high blood pressure. Seriously. If you must go the the American Girl store, do not, under any circumstances, allow your child to wheedle you into eating at the cafe.
Ah, who am I kidding? You're going to go, if you go to the store.
Just order a salad.
For those unfamiliar with the concept, American Girl dolls are very expensive toys whose primary attribute seems to be cache with the 5-9 year-old girl demographic. It certainly isn't the quality of the toys, which are nothing special, and are vastly overpriced. But, hey, they're only little girls for a while, and these things make them happy, right?
In this case, we made fairly modest purchases. Each kid got an animal friend of one of the American Girls. My six year old got "Coconut," a Westie-looking dog. My three year old got some kind of black cat named "Licorice." These animals are basically hunks of unmoving plastic, covered in fur. They can't even turn their heads. But the kids love em. At $19 apiece, I'm kind of flabbergasted at the crap quality, but whatever.
The American Girl stores (there are only a handful of them in the U.S.) are the complete experience for kids. There are huge displays with the latest dolls and accessories. There are videos playing in rooms displaying the various historical period dolls (American Revolution, WWII, etc.) There's even a theater with some kind of stage show that, thankfully, my kids didn't notice.
What they did notice, or rather what my six year old already knew about, was the cafe in the store. It's more like a restaurant, really. An expensive restaurant. The difference is that here, the dolls are treated like part of your party. They get their own seats. They get some (empty) dishes put in front of them. It's quite cute, and the kids love it.
But the food is atrocious.
The menu looks nice, the dishes sound good, but someone in the American Girl organization has decided that, while sugar and spice and everything nice is fine for the rest of the store, the cafe will concentrate more on salt. And I mean a LOT of salt.
I'm the kind of guy who loves salt. Chips, fries, you name it, it's better salty. But I have finally found the restaurant that only serves food for the "vinegar, sea salt, and hydrochloric acid"-flavored chips crowd.
Two bites into a chicken sandwich and I could feel my kidneys beginning to shut down. They should have a warning posted for people with high blood pressure. Seriously. If you must go the the American Girl store, do not, under any circumstances, allow your child to wheedle you into eating at the cafe.
Ah, who am I kidding? You're going to go, if you go to the store.
Just order a salad.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)