We Can't Have Nice Things

Tooth extraction succeed

via succeedblog.org

Ellie has her first loose tooth. Maybe I need to go buy an RC car.

The Fresh Beat Band

I keep seeing ads for a show on Nick Jr. called "The Fresh Beat Band" and thinking that the giant white guy looks like Hoyt from "True Blood" 

See for yourself.

Ellie reading "Where The Wild Things Are"

She's now reading books all by herself.

Won't someone think of the children? No, seriously.

My wife and I are really careful about what our children watch on television. We avoid anything that is too scary or disturbing for our five-year-old daughter or our two-year-old son. This is a lot more challenging than it sounds. Both network and cable TV is filled with ads that are completely inappropriate for anyone under 52, much less a kindergartener and a toddler.

Tonight we had a close call with nightmareland when I left the Monday Night Football game on in the living room while I went in the kitchen. Usually we never leave the room without turning the channel to the Food Network (the only channel we've found that doesn't show scary commercials) but the football game was really exciting and I hadn't wanted to miss any of it. I was in the kitchen playing with my son when I realized that Ellie was in the living room and I didn't know what was being shown.

My wife walked in just in time to see that they were showing a commercial for a horror movie called Pandorum. Fortunately, Ellie's back was to the TV and she didn't see any of it, but that's not the point. Remember, this was at 7pm Pacific Time on ESPN. Watch these two versions (I'm not sure which one of these was playing tonight) and tell me that they're not completely inappropriate for kids:

And this isn't even the worst of it. A few months ago there was a commercial for a movie called "The Strangers" that gave me the heebie-jeebies so badly that I couldn't stand to watch it.

So here's my question: are we a couple of Maude Flanders-types who stand up in the town meeting and yell, "won't someone think of the children" or are we right that commercials have gotten way too scary?

Fathers are special

Nothing says "special" like the bargain bin at Borders.

Crappy children's book of the week: Here Comes Eloise!

"Here Comes Eloise" is a charming little story about a budding sociopath on roller skates who delights in tormenting the doomed employees of The Plaza, the snooty hotel where she lives. The book follows the little hellion as she menaces hotel guests with a luggage cart, steals the contents of other people's packages, abuses the kitchen staff, and ruins a wedding.

Apparently even her parents can't stand to spend more than five minutes with the little turd because they've left her in the care of some bitter old crone called Nanny, who does nothing to curb the girl's destructive tendencies. Even as an angry mob descends on Eloise's apartment, ostensibly to mete out some frontier justice, Nanny heads them off allowing Eloise to continue to run amuck.

The last page shows her pouring a carafe of milk down the hotel mail chute while saying, "Oooooooooooooo, I absolutely love The Plaza!" Disturbing.

The only redeeming quality of the book is the fact that it's about four pages long and has about 20 words in it.

Kids say the darndest things

Tonight my two-year-old son actually said to me, "Daddy, can you sing 'Gold Dust Woman'?"

I assure you, there was actually a logical series of events that got us to that question. He had been running after Vicki saying, "Hold me. Hold me." I jokingly said to him, "Hold me? Is that your favorite Fleetwood Mac song?" and started to list a few other songs: "How about 'Go Your Own Way''? How about 'Gold Dust Woman'?" Which led him to say "Daddy, can you sing 'Gold Dust Woman'?"

See? Totally logical.

In case of tantrum, break glass

My wife was invited to go see "Wicked" with my mom, sister and brother-in-law so I had both kids home with me tonight. It was fine for the first 15 minutes. We were eating dinner and having movie night (in other words, Dad's excuse for letting the kids watch tv all evening until it's time for bed) when my two-year-old son asked the question all babysitting fathers fear more than any other: "Where's momma?"

I tried to play it cool. "She's out. Here have another bite of food."

The corners of his mouth began to turn downward.

"Where's momma?"

And so it began. The next 40 minutes consisted of uncontrollable sobbing, high-pitched screaming, and stumbling around in anguish. And, of course, no evening is complete without a child crying so hard that they vomit up their entire dinner. Fun times.

The only thing you can do at times like that is to ride it out. You just keeping telling yourself, "this will end." I was at the dentist this morning to get a crown (God, writing that makes me feel old) and was in the chair for an hour with the dentist endlessly drilling one of my back teeth. Tantrums are a lot like that: unbelievably unpleasant, but temporary. After a while he began to relax I was able to bust out his favorite treat: toddler fruit snacks, which we refer to as "candy." After a couple of those he said, "candy makes me feel better."

Once he'd settled down I slumped down exhausted on the couch next to my daughter. She slid over close to me and leaned her head on my arm. She had been a perfect angel the whole time and was now doing her best to make me feel better. It's nice when the most trying, difficult and frustrating moments of parenting are immediately followed up with a little gesture that makes it all worthwhile.

Tiny Toys for Trying Times

My mother-in-law gave Ellie a Barbie toy yesterday (Barbie Luv Me 3 Taffy Dog and Puppies to be exact) and I was shocked by the size of some of the accessories that were included. The photo above shows a tiny toy dog bone sitting on the tip of my finger.

I wonder if these things can even be considered choking hazards. You could probably fit two dozen of them inside a Goldfish cracker, so I kind of doubt it. I'd be more concerned about them clogging up the HEPA air filter on my vacuum.

She also has dolls whose plastic shoes that can't be more than a quarter of an inch long. I looked around for some to photograph, but couldn't find any. I think you can imagine why.

What about me II: The Reckoning

I recently wrote about the little incident where Ellie blew out the candles on James' birthday cupcake, well today we had a small party for James and the kids took the rivalry up a notch.

We got him a Thomas the Tank Engine cake and he was warning Ellie all day not to blow out his candles. When we gathered around to sing "Happy Birthday" Ellie was standing right next to him. What happened next will be Ramsey family legend from this day on.

The photo series illustrates what happened pretty well. In the first photo you can see that Ellie is already annoying James by touching his ear. In the second you can see James trying to fend her off as she starts to lean forward. Lastly, you can see her blowing out the candles.

I guess that was the last straw. Rather than let his sister steal his thunder, he reached out and smashed the remaining lit candle with his hand.

As you can imagine, this created quite a scene. James immediately burst out crying and no one was sure whether he has burned himself or was just upset because his hand was covered with blue frosting.

My cousin Karen grabbed him and brought him to the kitchen sink and ran cold water over his hand. Fortunately, he wasn't hurt but was just angry that his sister had blown out his candles. We relit the candles and gave him a second chance, keeping Ellie far away.

Ironically, he couldn't blow hard enough to blow out the candles himself so I had to discreetly lean around him and get the last one. Thank God he didn't notice.