The Wit and Wisdom of Sprout: Volume 1

The Bean isn't the only one who spouts wisdom on a regular basis.  Now that Sprout has taken command of the English language, she's filled with nuggets of insight too:

Me:  "How do you know that?"
Sprout:  "Because I'm a Smarty McSmart!" (11/10)

"You don't need to get soap in my eyes because my eyes aren't dirty." (11/10)

Sprout (pointing to WonderWife's™ mouth): "What's that?"
WW™: "That's a piece of loose skin on my lip."
Sprout: "Oh. Can I eat it?" (12/10)

"Oopsie Donald Duck!" (instead of "oopsie daisy") (1/11)

"Don't cut me, I'm your sister!" (1/11)

"Dad, by accident the Bean yelled at me!" (1/11)

A State of the Union on 3D Movies

Hey everybody...

Wanna know where I am?  I'm hanging out over at my blog Reeling on Offsprung for a discussion about the current (sad) state of 3D movies.

RIF

Despite my love of pop culture, I am not one of those parents who push it on my kids. Yes, I’ve dipped their toes into the water of super heroes and Star Wars, but it’s nothing like the parents I know who were showing the original trilogy to their toddlers or putting them on a steady diet of cartoons before they turn 5. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to share what I love with my kids—especially the Bean. But he isn’t ready.

The Bean is what I call a young 5. He’s more sensitive and what he loves are shows like Sesame Street, Yo Gabba Gabba and Word World. Word World is a show that teaches reading, where everyone and everything is made of words. And it has captured the attention of my son like the Sirens captivated Odysseus or how a woman in a Snow White costume captivates me (but that’s another story). Right now Word World is just about the only show my kids will watch. As a result, the Bean is becoming obsessed with letters. He wants to learn to sound out words and he’s asking us how things are spelled. The other morning, WonderWife™ told me he actually read a bunch of words. He’s also been typing them out on her computer. I’ve even seen him try to teach his sister to read.

All of this is incredibly exciting as we slowly segue from picture books into chapter books.  It didn't occur to me, but the world of reading is the gateway into cool pop culture. Pretty soon he’ll be into things like the Captain Underpants series. Then I’ll introduce him to the comic book Bone--an excellent all-ages fantasy. There are comics now of Cars and The Incredibles.  And when he’s older, Harry Potter is waiting for him.

I’m okay with not being a guy who’s forcing my TV and movies down my kids’ throats.  My patience with my kids is being rewarded.  Because left to his own devices the Bean is choosing to watch a show like Word World that is stoking the literary fire within him. And although he may not be that interested in pop culture now, I know that he will be once the words start flowing.

Dirty Socks and the Muddy Hand

There were errant socks strewn about the floor of the Bean’s room. I pointed them out to him and asked him to pick them up. He hesitated.

“But…” he began.

I wasn't in the mood for excuses. I cut him off and demanded that he clean up his room.

“But the muddy hand,” he said.

“What?”

“The muddy hand is on the floor and I can’t touch it.”

The muddy hand comes from one of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books where the Wimpy Kid watches a horror movie about a disembodied hand and spends the rest of the book worried about it. Based on the amount of questions I fielded about the hand after we read the book, it was clear it was an aspect really captured the Bean's imagination.

I looked at the way the socks were laid on the floor. Upon closer inspection, they weren’t thrown haphazardly around the room, they actually created a path from the Bean’s bed, across the floor, to the rug where it was “safe”.

The Bean confirmed that this was why the socks were on the floor. I softened. If you’re going to have an excuse for a messy room, this was a pretty good one.

Curses Again!

The Bean continues to have a trenchant mouth. At least we think he does. Maybe. Well, in any case he's cursing. But in the most creative way. Here is another list of curses unleashed by the Bean:

Silly pookie!
Kabinga!
Hey you corn cucumber!
You silly bobbily bork!
You gaga!
You noggle head!
Keely head!
What the bobby bork!
Baba porky pine!
Mr. poppy face!


Click here for the original list.

Once Again, Delurk Yourselves

You blog readers can be a skittish bunch.  They silently sneak onto the pages of a blog, ingest, laugh (hopefully) and leave without a trace.  But there is one day a year where readers should feel safe to uncloak themselves and leave a comment.  I speak of Delurking Day.

Last year was a weird time for the blog.  Starting with a not so funny April Fools joke that lead into an incredibly hectic rest of the year, I wasn't able to focus as much attention here, and elsewhere on the interwebs, as I would have liked.  Sadly many of you left, but...a lot of you stayed.  I sincerely thank you for that.  Even though this year looks like another crazy one, I'm going to work to be more productive here.

So help celebrate Delurking Day by leaving a comment below.  Even though you might not comment regularly, it's really good to know you're here.


I will leave you with a conversation between me and the Bean from last night:


The Bean:  So at school I built this awesome Lego thing and I put a guy inside.  The guy had just eyes.

Me:  So he didn't have a head?

The Bean:  He had a head, but he didn't have a mouth.  He had a big helmet like...um...like a marching band hat.  It was all black.

Me:  Was it Darth Vader?

The Bean:  How do you know about Darth Vader?

Me:  Wait, how do YOU know about Darth Vader?

 

Green Hornet: F Yeah!

Green Hornet comes out tomorrow and despite some bad buzz from last year’s Comic-Con, I think the movie’s going to be fun on a bun.

Here’s why:

• Seth Rogen as action hero is awesome against-type casting

• It’s got a fun, bright, crisp, pop look to it

• I have a not-so-secret man crush on Seth Rogen.

• It’s mad genius crazy, visionary director Michel Gondry’s first action movie. (He’s done some amazing music videos as well as director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.)

• The Black Beauty

• Though it wasn’t shot in 3D, it was conceived that way. It looks like it makes good use of the extra dimension.

• Kato-Vision.

• It was written by Rogen and Evan Goldberg, who also wrote Superbad and Pineapple Express, and they know their way around a buddy pic.

• The notion that studios dump their less than stellar movies in January is an antiquated notion. These days, the popcorn movies don’t always come out in the summer.

• Did I mention my worship of Seth Rogen?

So...If anyone needs me, it’ll have to wait until Saturday because I'm gonna be at the movies.

The Power of the Party

Five year olds don’t wield very much power. There is little they can do to rage against a world filled with bedtimes and teeth brushing and interrupted games. Which is why I have been uninvited to the Bean’s birthday party six times.

When the Bean gets angry, I mean really, really angry, his face becomes flushed and he’ll invade my personal space and in the most sincere tone will come the fateful words, “You are not invited to my birthday party!”

I try not to laugh, for doing so would belittle his feelings. But it’s hard not to break under such intensity. I try to tell him that without me, there would be no birthday party. But it’s hard enough to explain the concept of earning money to a young kid—especially one in the throws of a tantrum over having to put their toys away before bed.

The birthday party remained the one trump card in the Bean’s otherwise small deck. Until the day after his birthday party, when the Bean discovered that he no longer could use this power.

It’s tough to be a kid.

I Got This

“I’m tired of living under the inadequacies of my peers,” I told WonderWife™ over the phone the first night she was away.

WonderWife™ had been suddenly called out of town for a family emergency, leaving me as temporary stay-at-home-dad for three days. In the brief time between WW™ making her plans and leaving, there was a huge outpouring of support and encouragement for me. A few of WW™’s friends even promised to drop their own families in order to help me if I needed. While everyone meant well, I was annoyed by the implication.

I’m a competent dad. When it comes to taking care of my kids by myself, I got it. Under my watch, my kids always get fed well, get bathed and get to bed on time.  But based on everyone’s reaction, you would’ve thought me a total parenting noob. I’m not exactly sure where the perception comes from. Maybe years of watching inept sit-com dads on TV have influenced the collective consciousness. Or perhaps the husbands of WW™’s friends are a bit lacking and it’s being projected onto me? I’m not here to judge. I’m just trying to get to the bottom of why it becomes a much bigger deal than it should that I’m left alone my offspring for a few days.  

The reality is, I needed very few instructions. Aside from a list of a few errands and some overly complicated instructions for the preparation of school snack, to work around various allergies of classmates, WW™ didn’t need to school me on anything. Sure I asked for a complete run down of what to pack in the kids’ school lunches, but that’s because they are creatures of habit and I wanted to replicate what they’re used to. Left to my own devices, I’m confident I would have worked it out myself.   

The only thing I could have used a little help with was preschool pick up. My fatal flaw was relying on Sprout to guide me. I figured since she’d accompanied WonderWife™ to every single pick up she’d know a thing or two. However, the little monkey led me to the wrong room. The teacher inside politely guided me to another room, where my presence interrupted the class. The Bean noticed me right away and became unable to pay attention to the most hectic game of Simon Says I’ve ever seen. (Note to self: be extra good to the Bean’s teachers at the end of the year.) Not wanting to disrupt the game, I stood in the corner trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. After a while, I noticed some other parents loitering outside. Then it hit me. Nobody told me this is where we were supposed to wait until the kids are released.

With head hung low, I slunk outside to join the adults. Of course when I looked up whom should I see but the moms who offered to help me. They were wearing sly, sympathetic smiles—images of Michael Keaton in Mr. Mom running through their heads. “You’re doing it wrong.” This was not helping my case for independence.

The women reiterated their offer and I politely thanked them, gathered up the kids and headed home, where later I would cook a full dinner (with veggies…from scratch). I know that their hearts were in the right place, but aside from my ignorance about school pick up policy, when it comes to being a parent, I got this.

Rainbow Cake

When asked, the Bean said he wanted a coconut rainbow cake for his birthday.  For most people, this conjures up an image of a sheet cake with an icing rainbow painted on.  But because WonderWife™ just can't do things normally, and because she's a bit insane, she summoned her inner Martha Stewart and made this:

(She isn't called WonderWife™ for nothing.)

The Bean was surprised and excited.  And as the four of us sat at the table enjoying the cake, the Bean wished he had more people to share it with.

Now he does.