I think I've been watching too much children's television

-
I'm a television addict. As much as I try to turn off the TV and walk away, I frequently find myself reaching for the remote so I can watch a little more HGTV or Headline News. Unless baseball is in season, than I'm almost exclusively a Fox Sports Detroit/MLB TV kinda guy.

That is until The Kid came along. We didn't want to fill her head with a bunch of junk, but we couldn't seem to get through most days without the glowing box shining brightly in our living room. So we started with Baby First TV, which gave us the scintillating shows Harry the Bunny, Fred and Fiona, and VocabuLARRY. We have since transitioned into harder core toddler television. Now our days start with Little Bill and end with Wibbly Pig.

And here's my dirty little secret, I like these shows. Little Bill is smartly written, and we nicknamed The Kid's great grandmother after Little Bill's grandmother, Alice The Great. I like the little Spanish lessons Nina sprinkles into the Good Night Show. But I'm starting to develop a bit of a love/hate relationship with the genre. One reason can be summed up easily by saying Caillou. Not all is bad however, here are a few of my observations having watched the genre for a year now:

  • As much as I like The Pajanimals, the fact that they never involve their parents when Squaky, SweetPea Sue, CowBella, or Apollo have problems disturbs me. Aren't parents supposed to be the first line of defense for all kids, not randoms from the neighborhood?
  • I can't watch Tree Fu Tom without laughing because he really is a dead ringer for my friend Grace's husband.  
  • Doesn't Peppa Pig's dad, Daddy Pig, sound just like the announcer on Sarah and Duck? 
  • Why do the British and Canadians produce most of the good children's programming?
  • In case you're wondering, apparently the answer to, "how much stuff can you stuff into a Stuffie until your Stuffie's stuffed enough stuff," is a lot. 
  • Speaking of which, Sprout airs way too many commercials.
  • Mio Mao makes me wish claymation was still en vogue.  

Popular posts from this blog

Marching for hope in our neighborhood

-
Image
The Kid and I walked our neighborhood this evening, but with a different purpose than usual. Many in our neighborhood gathered at Gesu Catholic Church to March for Hope . Roughly this time last year, a federal judge who lives a few streets over, was shot on his front porch in a botched robbery attempt. His physical recovery from the single bullet to the knee took the better part of a year and extensive rehabilitation, and his emotional recovery was sped by his church community and immediate neighbors. I don't know the judge, nor am I a member of his church Gesu Catholic. I'm not much of a protest guy either, I prefer to work behind the scenes. I read about the walk this morning , and almost forgot about it until Gladys started to do some work for a class she's taking. So we bundled up The Kid, and the two of us walked over to the church to support our neighborhood. When we walked into the church, I was struck immediately with the knowledge that this was not a protes
Read more

Yet another blog of parenting advice

-
Image
A friend whose wife is expecting their first child was asking me for advice today. He's going to be a new dad, so he was asking in general terms because until you're in it, you really don't know what to ask for. My knee-jerk reaction was to tell him to get rest. Lots of it, whenever you can from now until the kids are adults. Forget the idea of work/life balance too, because balance is a myth. Sometimes work will take priority, sometimes the kids will, and sometimes dad has to be a priority. If you're too concerned about hitting a false measure of balance, you're going to miss something. The End of the Beginning And that was it. That's all I could come up with until I got in the car and scarfed down one of the sugar cookies I bought for myself as a treat that I had no intention of sharing. Here's what I came up with. Avoid watching Caillou at all costs. For some reason, kids are absolutely mesmerized by him. No adult on that show holds the kid acc
Read more

But you're so young and athletic

-
Image
I fully expected to be writing a few humble brag posts on my social media channels by now of my athletic prowess, or at least tales of how I survived my first couple of organized classic cross country ski races. I’ve long thought about what it would be like to participate in the Noquemanon Ski Marathon , but living in a snow-desert like Detroit makes training tough. Since I’ve never done a race in my life on skis, I figured it would be a good idea to take on some shorter distances to see if this was something I would really enjoy doing. My training for the Krazy Klassic closer to home was fun. My walks with Barney were longer. So was my time on the yoga mat. When the race began, it was harder than I expected but I chalked that up to a lack of time on skis this year. Ultimately, I hit my goal, which was to finish the race. My 5k time was among the slowest that day , but I left the experience encouraged that my fitness was going in the right direction for the White Pine Stampede a few w
Read more