How many is that in rabbit years? Ask Max and Ruby

Posted by dad…

Max & Ruby, poor latchkey children rabbits, live in a home filled with antiques. Obviously abandoned by their parents, possibly due to their behavior (or the need for their parents to procreate like, well rabbits in order to create  more genteel set of children).

Only an occasional visit from Grandma acts as their only adult supervision. Poor little young Ruby has the unfortunate responsibility of raising her baby brother, Max.

Max, the monstrous demon child who loves dirt cakes, worms, destruction and shoving filth into his overall pockets must be quite the handful for innocent, young Ruby. They have no visible means of support, other than the occasional coin from selling lemonade and rare cash from grandma. In fact, they run a tab with the grocery and rarely have enough money to take the bus into town for shopping sprees. No bunny food stamps? No rabbit Social Security? Oh well, they will have to wait for the United States of Rabbits’ stimulus plan like the rest of us.

To entertain themselves, Ruby throws birthday parties practically every show. How often do bunnies have birthdays?

In this land ruled by children, and obviously modeled after the Lord of the Flies, the creators have strived to show the softer side of children practicing self rearing techniques.

Needless to say, this shamockery of children raising techniques aimed at creating anarchist behaviors in children, is a favorite along the lines of the gritty inner city children reality show, Sesame Street.

Beware the dangers of letting TV raise your children! I’m just waiting for one of those Elmo dolls to go Chucky
on someone.

Good Girl?!?

Posted by Dad…

Well Tracey and I swore we would not be the type of parents that uses TV to help occupy our daughter. Well that didn’t last too long, hopefully not to her detriment growing up in this plugged in society

So Tracey, based on Zoe’s progress decided to try her out on actual TV, you know, the kind we grew up on with the PBS logo and the telethons, etc. instead of the direct programming we have been piping into her from the Baby Einstein videos…

She flipped from Judge Whomever-it-is-this-week to our old public station and what happened to be on?

Wont’cha tell me how to get (Because we always want our children asking strangers directions) to Sesame Street?
So the first scene was an in depth conversation between a furry creature with Marty Feldman eyes and a slightly less furry, less Feldman eye’d creature talking about scythes or some whatnot in front of a brick wall.

Zoe took one look and immediately let us know her dissatisfaction with this particular type of programming. Give that girl some brightly colored sport or her Baby Einsteins!

Good Girl! No reason for us to have to explain Bert and Ernie, or Big Bird’s hallucenogenic friend Snuffalop-a-whatever-it-is-a-gus.

Good Girl? Hooked on one video already at the tender age of 9 months?

Eeesh, the psychotic break can’t come soon enough to drown the DVDs out with pleasant beeps and buzzes inside my head…

Discount Baby Music – Value or Valueless demonic influence?

Posted by dad…

(Not a paid advertisement)
That’s right Parents! You too can save BIG money by buying your baby music CDs at discount marts! Since the music is Mastered in Canada and cases are printed in China, you can rest assured that your children will exceed the FDA requirements for nutritious lead and in turn grow up to be placid, happy babies!

Well, Zoe and I were tooling around in the car and the batteries had died in her Intellimirror thing, so I ripped open the two CD sets purchased from Tuesday Morning earlier in the week.

Into the CD player all 6 CDs went and Zoe blissed out to the sound of folkies and children’s choirs singing all our early childhood favorites:

• Waltzing Matilda (sans Tom Waits)
• I’ve been working on the railroad (children happily resisting child labor reform)
• The Ants go marching in (Communist manifesto)
• The wheels on the bus (more about this in the upcoming Baby Einstein or Baby Leary post)
• Take me out to the ballpark (and spend $1,000 on a day that will inspire one everlasting memory (for you that is) – barfing copious amounts of popcorn, peanuts and hot dogs mixed with Coke and Crackerjacks, while screaming about being bored and wanting to go home to the comfort of air conditioning, TV and video games)

As I basked in the throes of the psychotic break, enjoying the blur of traffic lights and street signs and barely audible buzzes, clicks and hypersonic voices of tiny children singing, something strange happened.

Birds started singing, vaguely discordant minor organ chords slipped by underneath the pop inspired beat. Familiar strains wafted from the stereo, I started craving deserts from Colorado, and then I snapped back to attention! What is that song?

(insert big double take head spin here)

Steppenwolf? Magic Carpet Ride? (legal disclaimer Words and music by John Kay and Rushton Moreve)

I like to dream yes, yes, right between my sound machine (prescient ode to a Bose stereo?)
On a cloud of sound I drift in the night (Another ode to pharmacological nocturnal rest aids?)
Any place it goes is right
Goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here

Well, you don’t know what we can find
Why don’t you come with me little girl
On a magic carpet ride
You don’t know what we can see
Why don’t you tell your dreams to me
Fantasy will set you free
Close your eyes girl
Look inside girl
Let the sound take you away

Granted there is a fine line between childlike fantasy and pedophilic bizarity and the words were altered ever so slightly to become more gender neutral… but is that o.k., or did the predatory nature of the song just expand twofold?

Can anyone say Amber Alert should have a watch sign for whomever recorded this song and slipped it into the middle of a children’s CD?

If I want my daughter learning about the reality of life, I’ll just have her watch the same (Mature adult only warning labeled) Sesame Street episodes my wife and I grew up on!

Zoe’s dreamt of a scary holiday

Posted by Dad…

Zoe received her first doll for the holidays.

Kinda cute, isn’t it with it’s blue eyes, blond hair and chubby belly? Well at first view, yes – BUT:

• look up wide set eyes and a myriad of genetic diseases with in depth photos appear that will make one alternately fascinated and nauseated while simultaneously wondering how any standard life could be brought forth without being sentenced to Dr. Moreau’s island of horrors
• The friendly body shape obviously is brought to us courtesy McDs, Nestle and a complete disregard for any type of physical movement whatsoever
  • the lack of underlying bone structure just adds to the effect
• how could a nose that small provide enough oxygen for such a portly body?
• at a glance, the nose and mouth combination seem to form the perfect O of a smiling scream of horror seen only in certain Twilight Zone episodes, horror movies and psychological artistry produced in the late sixties and early seventies…

On further review, the Venus of Willendorf has nothing on this character

The blue eyes accented by blue eyelashes more suited to trolling the streets for love or disco than innocent infantile play… the placid eyes contrasting the silent scream creating the perfect handicapable loveable montage that draws our young in, yet would frighten us walking about on the street.

Oh well, I think the fever we have been sharing all weekend is kicking in. More ranting soon.