Children: May 2009 Archives

When I told Caleb that he could watch "Super Why" a few weeks ago, he said "Cool. Is there gonna be fighting? Because super in the name means there's gonna be fighting."

Okay, I think this means that my kid has gotten way too familiar with super-hero culture (which I think he gets by osmosis, because we don't watch superhero stuff at home and we don't have superhero comics, either) - I was afraid that when we turned on "Super Why," he would be bored silly: he expected smash! crash! pow! and was getting a show about reading, instead.

But you know what? Despite the lack of swords, guns, bazookas, and other weaponry, Caleb loved "Super Why." Just as the show's designers intended, Caleb called out responses to the questions, pointed to the letters on the TV screen, and clapped with satisfaction when he was right. Later in the week, when we did a Super Why jigsaw puzzle (with hidden words in the pictures), Caleb flopped on the floor with his Super Why magnifying glass and started spelling out the words he found: "C-L-O-U-D, what's that?" "Look, I found T-O-W-E-R!" 

Full disclosure: asking Caleb to watch Super Why was homework, of a sort; he was my test-case for the claims made about the show at a lunch I went to a few weeks ago.

This lunch, at PBS, was my first-ever blog-related event: as one of the contributors to the NYMom's Blog, I was invited to a lunch with other bloggers (a word I've decided I really don't like) in order to learn about "Super Why!"

  Going into the lunch, I carried three secrets:
first, ignorance: prior to the lunch, I'd never seen the show, didn't know it existed, had to watch it on youtube even to know what it was about.

second, superciliousness (a word that I should use more because it's so fun to say, like Episcopalian and azure): my kids mostly don't watch TV during the day, unless they're sick, and even then I try to ration it out so that being sick doesn't become "fun." (One of the most satisfying moments of early motherhood for me was hearing three-year-old Liam say to a friend who was over for a playdate, "oh, no, you can't watch TV in the daytime," as if he were explaining some incontrovertible natural law.)

third, an ongoing marital discussion (a word I use instead of argument): Husband says screens (TVs, computers, etc) are just screens and that what matters is what's on the screen. I say screens create a kind of passivity, or, at best, encourage only limited creativity.
 
So as you might imagine, I went off to this lunch filled with curiosity but aware that I might not be the ideal audience.

Reader, I have to say: the food was good, the questions excellent, and this show - really, really smart: it knows how to reach its young audience without creating the parental ARGH that something like "Barney" causes. It's so smart, in fact, that your kid will get excited about calling out letters, words, directions. So smart, in fact, that some in the audience may have entertained thoughts about wrong career paths being chosen...wondered why she's chosen a life of slogging through badly written student papers instead of helping to craft terrific children's programming...

At the end of the lunch, we were given PBS-related swag (my first swag!) to use with our kids and asked to write about their experiences (and ours) with "Super Why" and other PBS shows, like "Cyber Chase." Being a part of the conversation about media and kids filled me with energetic thoughts about how it was time to change my children's media habits and that if, as Husband says, a screen is just a screen, then I was going to bloody well make sure that what came out of the screen wasn't just the equivalent of brain twinkies.

Well, my good intentions smashed first into the obdurate surface of stubborn, eight-year-old Liam, who claimed that "Cyber Chase" seemed too much like homework and the stuff he did in his computer class at school. My resolve smashed secondly into Caleb's love of "Scooby Doo," which he won't give up, despite having seen every episode a gazillion times. "Super Why" can't persuade him to turn off the cartoon (yes, I know, I could turn it off, but it's his end-of-day forty-five minutes of TV, and let's be honest people, by the end of the day, I'm tired).

So here it is: I'm willing to concede Husband's point that a screen is just a screen, and that what comes out of the screen is what matters. But now that I've been presented with smart, nutritious programming, in the form of Super Why and other PBS shows, I'm realizing just how addictive brain twinkies can be.

No, this picture is not taken at an airport. It was taken at approximately 5:26PM last Wednesday, in the cafeteria of Liam's school. Caleb in tow, I was picking up Liam from his after-school karate class and taking him to a make-up baseball game (due to the 8500 days of rain we've had this spring, baseball games have been rained out almost more than they've been played).

Never mind the ridiculousness of asking eight-year-olds to play a two-hour baseball game late in the day on a school night, let's look at the gear:

• one bag full of baseball gear (uniform, cleats, glove, bat);
• one tote bag with snacks/dinner, toy cars for Caleb to play with at the baseball game, wallet, water bottle, extra sweatshirt for Liam;
• Liam's school backpack, in which he's carrying the just-released (hardback) conclusion to the Percy Jackson series;
• Liam's bag of karate gear: uniform and pads for sparring practice

From the school to the baseball field is a distance of about twelve long blocks (from 1st Avenue to the East River/FDR, basically). Yes, we could take a cab, but I figured we'd be taking a cab after the game, as well (cold tired hungry children = mandatory cab ride), and I wasn't crazy about spending fifteen bucks on cabs.

I've thought about starting a new company: Mommy Mules, that would allow parents to rent small docile burros for short distances, as a way to portage all their child-related crap from place to place, but mule-storage is an issue. You can't just fold a mule up at the end of the day and shove it in the closet.

So yes, to shlep our stuff from school to the baseball field we used our trusty Maclaren assault vehicle. Slung all those bags across the handles, plopped the almost-five-year-old Caleb in the seat and off we went.

I know that some folks frown when they see "big kids" in strollers - and truth be told, Caleb doesn't ride in it very much any more - but they should unwrinkle their brows. The stroller's got nothing to do with the child riding in it and everything to do with what's strapped across the back. Until I solve the mule-storage problem, the stroller will have to do. Sir Edmund Hillary had a sherpa...I've got a Maclaren.

Liam (getting out of the shower): Mommy, can I tell you something?

Mommy (ears pricking up lest she miss An Important Mother-Son Moment): Sure, anything.

Liam (looking at mommy sideways to gauge her reaction): Today, at Barnes and Noble, in the magazine section, I saw a magazine with a lady on the cover who was ... completely naked.

Mommy (aware of the potential irony of this conversation occurring while she is drying off her son's naked post-shower body): Really. Hmmm ... So what did you think about that? 

Liam: It was weird, Mommy. And there were other magazines like that, too and I saw -

Mommy: You saw her breasts and -

Liam (giggling): and everything. And I saw another magazine that said "hot guys inside" and had a picture of a guy with no shirt on.

Mommy (wishing that the magazine racks were higher off the ground or that her son didn't know how to read): What does "hot" mean, do you know?

Liam (striking a pose and flexing his muscles): it means really, really good looking. But this guy, I don't know mommy, he wasn't that hot. He had a big moustache and stuff.

Mommy (wondering when and why the 1970s 'stache came back into fashion and what, exactly, Liam means by "stuff"): Really. So hot means good-looking? But you didn't think this guy was good looking?

Liam: No. It was just weird. Why would someone want a magazine like that do you think?

Mommy: Well... I guess some people like to look at naked bodies. So they make magazines that they think people will buy.

Liam: Like they do with legos. Always making things so you want new stuff?

Mommy: Same idea, I guess, right.

Liam (pjs on, teeth brushed): Can I play Wii now?

Clearly, in the battle between "gadgets" and "naked" that rages constantly in the male brain, electronica is winning - at least for now. I wonder how much longer?