Put On Your Sunday Clothes...

Dear Gremlin,

I would like to make a date with you every day for the rest of your life to sit on the couch and snuggle and watch WALL-E. 

I know that you're a big boy now; you're in Kindergarten for goodness sakes!  Kindergarten! You sit at the kitchen table and do your homework along side your big brother. We talk a lot about letters and numbers and sounds and words.  You and Daddy played War with cards nearly every night this week.  Since you've been back in school all your learning and thinking and doing has just accelerated. 

And I want to tell you a little secret, when you hold my hand with both of yours and tell me you hate school and you want to stay home with me? A big part of me wants to let you. Even after nearly a month, leaving the playground after drop-off all by myself still feels really strange - and kind of lonely.  You're growing up.  It shows in your struggles and in facing your fears by walking in that door and making new friends and going to gym and music and computers (you're not too crazy about art...).

Then, you and Wall-e sing along to "Put on Your Sunday Clothes" with Cornelius and Barnaby...

Close your eyes and see it glisten, Portabee.
Listen, Portabee!

And you're my baby again.

They Might Be Geniuses

The curse of all parents; the dreaded kids' music playing in the car. I thought I had it licked when I found All You Need is Love: Beatles Songs for Kids. It wasn't exactly like listening to The Fab Four but at least when a song go stuck in your head, you didn't want to gouge your eyes (ears?) out.

A couple of years ago, my neighbor turned the boys and me on to They Might be Giants: Here Come the 123s. It's positively adorable. And catchy. This year, as Santa was making his list, he was very pleased to find TMBG's latest installment, Here Comes Science.

Big hits include I Am a Paleontologist and (my personal favorite) The Bloodmobile, which talks about "the delivery service inside us, carrying oxygen, nutrients, things that fight infection and the trash collection..."



Don't get me wrong, the reason my kids watched Baby Einstein videos was because they (the videos) were innocuous, bright, and allowed me to shower, vacuum, or make a meal without a child strapped to me. But with lyrics like "the sun is a miasma of incandescent plasma" I'm pretty sure these guys might be geniuses. And I can't help but wonder if their music might be spreading just a little of that super-brainpower around.

At a minimum, my boys are comfortable hearing and sometimes using words that wouldn't enter their lexicon for quite a few years to come.  Best case scenario is that we're opening discussions about science and the physical world in ways that I simply wouldn't have come up with.

And I don't want to gouge my ears out.  That's what I call a win/win.



* The preceeding was not a paid post.  Simply me expressing an opinion. :-)

If Ever...

If ever I would leave you,
How could it be in spring-time?
Knowing how in spring I'm bewitched by you so?
Oh, no! not in spring-time!
Summer, winter or fall!
No, never could I leave you at all!

But if ever I would kill you,
It would be for this,

It's a Sing-Along!

We interrupt regularly scheduled blogging for a musical interlude:

Please Stand for Our National Anthem

God bless my barista
Man that I love
Stand in line here
Get mine here

Day or night
Venti's right
Chai I love

From the drive thru
To the Target
Back to Starbucks
Light, no foam

God bless my barista
Live in
My home

**Originally posted last year, around this time. I unconsciously sing it almost every (day) time I head there. I'm thinking about the second verse. Any ideas??

Roadtrip!

Making our annual pilgrimage to Storyland for one last long summer weekend.

Peace out.

The Kind that Will Even Say, "How Do You Do?"

We're sitting down having a nice family evening; the fireplace is crackling and the four of us are snuggled up on the couch in our 'jamas, watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

We get to the part where Rudolph, Herbie, and Yukon Cornelius land on the Island of Misfit Toys.

Andy: Why is the doll a 'misfit' again?

MM: No one has ever known. It's one of life's great mysteries.

HRH: Maybe she's just really boring to play with...


My son; pondering the impoderable.

An Ode to Starbucks

God bless my barista
Man that I love
Stand in line here
Get mine here

Day or night
Venti's right
Chai I love

From the drive thru
To the Target
Back to Starbucks
Light, no foam

God bless my barista
Live in
My home

80s Alert

(Pipe Wrench Fight)