Kid stuff
No clever links this time - just a few kid stories...some of you already know them, but anyhow.....
A few weeks ago we brought the kids into the city - the big draw was the Museum of Natural History. On the way there, my 5 year old son was pretty excited, and having seen the movie, "Night At The Museum", was especially looking forward to the dinosaur displays. NJ Transit provided thrills that were only built upon by the subway ride - the dinosaurs were really going to put this day over the top.
We were advised to head to the 4th floor to see the dinos. As the elevator doors opened, he asked, eyes wide "Where's Rexy?" I knew the T-Rex was just around the corner, and let him lead the way to the wondrous sight. The dinosaur displays were just as impressive as I expected, with the fossils arranged to demonstrate their size and ferocity, and the T-Rex was particularly menacing with it's huge jaws and teeth. My boy looked up at the beast, screwed up his face, and looked at me with an expression between disgust and disappointment, "That is NOT Rexy!", he proclaimed, "He isn't even MOVING!" Uh-oh...I figured he understood that the dinosaur that came to life in the movie was not real, but I was wrong. There was no real recovery from this letdown, and most of the museum, besides the face to face with "Dum-Dum" was a struggle to keep his interest. Next time I'll just let him ride the Newark Light Rail for a few hours.
My 8 year old daughter, now she's a different story. I'v managed to get her interested in better music than the Hannah Montana and other insipid kid stuff out there, so now she has become a bit of a Beatles fan - raiding my CD collection, and even looking up Beatles cartoons on YouTube - actually both her and the boy are doing that now, which is a welcome relief from wall to wall Sponge Bob. So I decide to indulge her interest, and pick up a Ringo CD at the library, to share with her. After leaving her to listen to it while she cleaned her room, she called me in, with a note of concern in her voice. Ringo was singing that oldie, "You're 16", and she asks me "How old is he?" So I say, probably 33 or so when he's singing this song, and she comes back with how that's a little wierd, inappropriate, and she's not sure whether she likes this song. Well then. I argue that he's remembering what it was like to be a teenager, and she seemed to think that was an ok explanation, though I guess I'm glad she's cautious. About a half hour later I walked in on her enthusiastically singing the verses to the "No-No Song". She just found the bouncy rhyhym and exotic sounding words to be too much fun to resist, and proclaimed this song her favorite! I begged with her to NEVER mention this to her teachers, friends or anyone besides me, "ok?", explaining that it was about drugs, and drugs are bad, and how if she mentions them in school, she will get in BIG trouble. I think she got it.
A few weeks ago we brought the kids into the city - the big draw was the Museum of Natural History. On the way there, my 5 year old son was pretty excited, and having seen the movie, "Night At The Museum", was especially looking forward to the dinosaur displays. NJ Transit provided thrills that were only built upon by the subway ride - the dinosaurs were really going to put this day over the top.
We were advised to head to the 4th floor to see the dinos. As the elevator doors opened, he asked, eyes wide "Where's Rexy?" I knew the T-Rex was just around the corner, and let him lead the way to the wondrous sight. The dinosaur displays were just as impressive as I expected, with the fossils arranged to demonstrate their size and ferocity, and the T-Rex was particularly menacing with it's huge jaws and teeth. My boy looked up at the beast, screwed up his face, and looked at me with an expression between disgust and disappointment, "That is NOT Rexy!", he proclaimed, "He isn't even MOVING!" Uh-oh...I figured he understood that the dinosaur that came to life in the movie was not real, but I was wrong. There was no real recovery from this letdown, and most of the museum, besides the face to face with "Dum-Dum" was a struggle to keep his interest. Next time I'll just let him ride the Newark Light Rail for a few hours.
My 8 year old daughter, now she's a different story. I'v managed to get her interested in better music than the Hannah Montana and other insipid kid stuff out there, so now she has become a bit of a Beatles fan - raiding my CD collection, and even looking up Beatles cartoons on YouTube - actually both her and the boy are doing that now, which is a welcome relief from wall to wall Sponge Bob. So I decide to indulge her interest, and pick up a Ringo CD at the library, to share with her. After leaving her to listen to it while she cleaned her room, she called me in, with a note of concern in her voice. Ringo was singing that oldie, "You're 16", and she asks me "How old is he?" So I say, probably 33 or so when he's singing this song, and she comes back with how that's a little wierd, inappropriate, and she's not sure whether she likes this song. Well then. I argue that he's remembering what it was like to be a teenager, and she seemed to think that was an ok explanation, though I guess I'm glad she's cautious. About a half hour later I walked in on her enthusiastically singing the verses to the "No-No Song". She just found the bouncy rhyhym and exotic sounding words to be too much fun to resist, and proclaimed this song her favorite! I begged with her to NEVER mention this to her teachers, friends or anyone besides me, "ok?", explaining that it was about drugs, and drugs are bad, and how if she mentions them in school, she will get in BIG trouble. I think she got it.
posted by Steve at 3/10/2008 10:56:00 PM
1 Comments:
Thank you. Well done.
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