Les Bonnes Choses

I thought I'd provide just a little bit of talk of bodily functions to start your day off. Like our friend V, who's got a son, Jack-Jack about the same age as Pokey, we're trying to get our little guy using the WC. We've got pull-ups, which could be described as insufficiently absorbent diapers that wear like underwear. The ones that we have been using have Pixar Cars themed designs on them, and with a blue indicator that disappears when wet. I understand that there are also brands that feel cold when they get wet. All that fanciness I think makes them a little more expensive than diapers, which makes it all the more irritating when they end up being used as diapers, as Pokey was doing all day long. I wonder whether it might not be more effective and less expensive to go the other direction and perhaps use some cayenne technology. I bet that gets pretty damn uncomfortable when it gets wet.

I swear there's a funny point to all this.

At the end of the day, he did the one thing in his pullups that I was dreading but expecting. And, as usual, I went through the routine of telling him that it should have gone in the potty. I have alluded in the past that using the potty could earn him a new toy car, but it didn't seem to click until I was changing him tonight. This time, I instead specified that, had he only gone poop in the potty, he could have maybe gotten a new RPM or NitroAid car (if this means nothing at all to you, that means you're enjoying a nice, normal life). When it dawned on Pokey that he had just missed out on that opportunity, he was crushed. He was sobbing, and absolutely had to poop on the potty after that. I was skeptical, as he had just filled his pull-up, but it turns out that some kids can be quite motivated. There was some grunting, and there were tears, but that little guy went and earned himself the last of the die-cast toy cars that Rebecca had cached away. He's a little young for Preparation-H though, so I hope he doesn't make a habit of this.

The moral of the story is that you're never too young to game the system.

This evening, Jude watched a youtube clip of James Blunt singing a song called My Triangle on Sesame Street:



Somewhere in the song, he used the word hypotenuse, which caused Jude and I to laugh, though presumably for different reasons. Tomorrow is a school day for Jude, and Rebecca said that she and Jude were talking about telling the class about the hypotenuse tomorrow. He's in bed now, and will in all likelihood forget about it overnight. Still, the prospect of a preschooler using the word hypotenuse is irresistable.

My dad tried to teach me a little bit about calculus in second grade. I remember telling Matt MacGregor about parabolas one summer evening when I saw him as I rode my bike. The kids in my grade pretty much all got along well. I can't imagine any other reason why that sort of talk didn't get me beat up.

Maybe I should have a chat with Jude again before he leaves for school in the morning.

This morning, as I was brushing my teeth, Jude wandered into the bathroom. After a moment, he looked up to the shelf to my left where we keep the children's Motrin. I don't know what flavour it's supposed to be, as I have never tasted it and don't remember what the box says. Whatever it may be, we have never had a problem getting Jude to take it because he likes the taste. So when he noticed the Motrin bottle on the shelf, he asked if he could have it. It took me a moment to figure out what he was asking for, before we had the following exchange:

Me: "No, you can't have medicine. Medicine is for when you're sick."
Jude: "*cough cough cough* Can I have medicine? Pleeeeease? *cough cough*"

Lots going on in '09. First off, there's all those things that are supposed to happen by 2010 that have to get taken care of. I couldn't find an online list, but I imagine there were quite a few outlandish prognostications made 10, 25 and 50 years ago.

My own prediction for the upcoming year is that things are going to get up-ended around here. I'm jetting down to San Diego in a couple of weeks to check out Jeff Elman's digs. I'm not entirely sure what that says about the likelihood of me getting an offer for a postdoc, but that's sort of what I'm banking on because I haven't heard back about any of the faculty positions to which I applied (which means I'll have to wait until March to start getting the "we like you, but just as a friend" letters). And of course, on top of that, Rebecca will be giving birth to the child now referred to as Tricky Monkey in the middle of all this, possibly at about the time that we're selling our house.

2009 is going to be a big production.

As a result of my status as a parent and an uncle to some pretty young kids, I have been exposed to quite a bit of what's being served up to kids these days. Most of it is just crap. I have a few friends who are in the animation industry (here's where I get to tag them), and I know that a few of them get irritated by the crappy animation that gets foisted on them because companies get all kinds of tax credits for producing this crap. It's like they print their own money. Surely you're familiar with the old Flintstones or Amazing Spiderman (trippy '70s bongo version) looping background gambit; it's like that, but slightly less obvious, though once it gets pointed out to you, you can't miss it (here's one: Next time you have occasion to see a cartoon, be on the lookout for extended periods of dialog where the screen is mostly filled with a character's face -- here the animators basically use of the head as a background, and only have to animate a mouth). Don't get me started on the plots.

Kids music seems to be similarly crappy. How many recordings of Old McDonald (sung either by a swarm of atonal, yelling kids, or else some saccharine vocalist) does the world need? Fortunately, Rebecca is chronically reading blogs, often written by mom-knitters, and seems to pick up recommendations for music that isn't total crap. I am rather pleased to be able to say that, instead of having a collection of Barney's sh*ttiest hits, we have CDs like For the Kids, too, (I really like John Lee Supertaster, by They Might Be Giants, I Often Dream of Trains, by Robyn Hitchcock, and Meow Meow Lullabye by Nada Surf). More recently, we picked up Blue Moo, which features some really well-done songs by artists like BB King, Brian Wilson, Sha Na Na. It's like they actually put in a bit of effort. If it happens to be in the CD player, I listen to it in the car even if Pokey isn't with me.

It's like how your parents didn't mind watching Sesame Street with you when you were little. Anyways, I just wanted to put in my $.02 on the topic. And tag a bunch of parents.