Gnumoon's Stuff

You damn kids and your music...

Before I had a child of my own, I was unaware of most music/fads/TV shows/cereal etc. for kids. And when I got pregnant, I remember telling my husband, "We're only letting her listen to classical music, for brain development. And NO TV EVER." Sigh. So naive.
I've since been indoctrinated, harshly on some occasions, into the world of "ENTERTAINMENT FOR KIDS."

Since many of my friends either do not have children yet, or are firmly in the ZPG/childfree camp, I thought I'd take this post to show you something you're blissfully ignorant about. It will horrify and astound, and make you check your watch to make sure you're popping that pill at exactly the same time EVERY SINGLE DAY. This, my friends, is the "Music for Kids Annoyometer." Think of it like the terror threat level indicator- use this handy guide to gauge how concerned you should be for your sanity when in the presence of children's music. And much like with the Bomb, hiding under a school desk ain't gonna save ya.

Now, not all music for kids is bad. In fact some of it I listen to even if Pookie is not with me and I would gladly recommend it to all. Another thing to note is that you don't have to be held hostage by children's music when in the presence of children. Usually anything with a catchy beat will suffice; Pookie's very favorite band in the whole world (today) is Great Big Sea.

The scale is rated from green to red, and is not all-inclusive. If a group is only on TV, it's likely we're not familiar with it.

Green: You'd listen to this in your car, even if you had the windows down and a hot gal or guy pulled up beside you. This list is short, but important, because these will sustain you through long road trips and times of thick snow and ice where you can't leave the house for a week (aka: oh my god what are we going to do stuck in this house for a week it will end up like in The Shining I just know it where is that axe allworkandnoplaymakejackadullboyallworkandnoplaymakejackadullboy.)

Barenaked Ladies, Snacktime - This is a great CD, and truthfully it isn't all that different from regular BNL music. Catchy tunes, switchbacking lyrics, lots of trivia about all things Canadian, puns. And for me, no less than two Rush references (one is even a Geddy Lee cameo. Evidently he prefers BBQ potato chips).

It's entertaining and educational, and helped Pooks impress the doctor by pointing out her philtrum.  As a plus, there are some cute videos to accompany some of the the songs (I wish there were more) on Youtube. My favorite is "Pollywog in a Bog."

They Might Be Giants, Here Come the ABCs & Here Come the 123s - If you like TMBG, you'll love these, and add them to your collection even if you have no intention of ever having, being around, or even looking at a kid. There are 2 CDs and 2 DVDs (note: be careful when purchasing, I accidentally bought the CD without the DVD and we're stuck watching the videos on Youtube because now I'm pissed and don't want to buy the whole shebang again just for the DVD).
My current favorites are "Triops Has 3 Eyes" and "High 5." Pookie's favorite is "One Dozen Monkeys."

Yellow: These songs/clips are mostly still okay. You can stomach them a few times a day, some of them are pretty catchy and fun. But there is a point of "OK, that's enough of that."

Sesame Street. I grew up with Sesame Street, so I can take quite a bit of it, especially if it's the older, more "classic" stuff like "C is for Cookie" or that Pointer Sisters cartoon about counting to 12.
But kids these days don't want the classics as much. They want Elmo. Through great marketing or complete chance, it is a rare child who can't count "Elmo" among their first words. Pooks has never seen an episode of Sesame Street, ever, and she adores "Uhhmo," to the point that we took her to Sesame Street Live, and it was perhaps the greatest hour and a half of her young life.
Because it's flown beneath the radar of most non-child-having types, I would be doing you a disservice if I didn't include a link here to the strangest of the Elmo sketches. So many questions ... Is it funny? Is it creepy? Is it both? Doesn't Elmo's dad seem awfully old to have such a young monster? Is "heiney" an acceptable word for Sesame Street? What is Elmo eating that necessitates air freshener?

Raffi: Come on, he sang Baby Beluga! What's not to love? Ok, honestly, some of his new stuff is a little preachy for my taste, but it's still solid.

Orange: Catchy, but grating. Sometimes you might wake up in the night humming one of these songs, and wonder if inserting an ice pick into your brain with force might stop you from thinking of it ever again. May I present:

The Wiggles- You may be completely unaware of the existence of these vibrant, singing Australian dudes, but on the child entertainment circuit, they are kings, titans, GODS. And the dubya-tee-eff factor is just through the roof. I dare you to watch the head-bobbing Big Red Car or the semi-Berkely-syle Medley, and not come away scratching your head.
Four guys, dressed in rainbow-hued shirts, living in one house and driving around in a convertible while singing and dancing? As one of my gay friends put it, "Gaaaaaaaaay." (He sort of sang it, really.)
But the thing is that gay or straight, mostly the whole thing is just strange. I finally came to the conclusion that the qualifications for "what is bizarre" must be different in Australia.
And what do I know? These guys are the KISS of kinder-rock, the hottest band in the world (and the hottest potato). Kids love them, and my kid is no exception. I regularly sing her to sleep with Rock-a-bye Your Bear. Although if she's trying to stay up, she'll start singing Quack Quack. (I also admit that when singing Wiggles tunes, I use an Australian accent ... "Let's ohl quehk togethah!")

I've now watched these little videos on Youtube so much that I've decided that Yellow is the leader, Blue gets all the backstage single-mother tail (or single father, NTTAWTT), Red holds the dubious distinction of being the "dorkiest," and the narcoleptic Purple asian guy is there for diversity and comic relief. He's the Long Duck Dong of the Wiggles, except instead of getting drunk and passing out amusingly, he just falls asleep and snores amusingly.
(Note: there is a television show for these guys as well, but I've never seen it. Two-minute long snippets online are about all I can handle.)

Red: There is a law of proportionality at work here. I'm no math whiz, but I'll try to explain. Plot "How much something annoys me" on the Y-axis, and plot "How much my progeny is obsessed with said thing" on the X-axis. At the furthest point up and to the right you can go lives the RED. You can rip your ears off while screaming like a banshee, but it won't stop these ditties from tingling ad nauseum in your head, clanging around like pinballs on the inside of your cranium all night long and into the misty morning hours.

It started innocently enough. At school Pookie learned "The Wheels on the Bus." She learned all the little moves and we obliged her by singing at home. It was cute. That was in August. At some point we googled "Wheels on the Bus" and found some videos on Youtube. They were slightly annoying, but they brought her such joy. Then came the DVD that accompanied the Youtube clips. Then another. Then another. Suddenly we were at the mercy of a monster who demanded "BUS!" every waking moment. She learned how to turn on the TV and the DVD player (she was 18 months old!) Merely hinting at not watching the Bus sent her into horrible tantrums, spasms of fury.

Months later, we are just now emerging from the rubble, but it has been a long road, and the healing has just begun. We are but shells, empty husks, of our former, pre-Bus DVD selves.

If you dare, here is the Bus. It stars Roger Daltrey (yes, that Roger Daltrey) as a giant dragon who drives a bus all around the town and has wacky madcap lame adventures with a toucan and a monkey, all set to different verses of "The Wheels on the Bus." There are three of these DVDs.
Watch if you dare, but remember: when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

Unbearable

This is Salisbeary. (Pronounced "Saulsbeary") He is Pookie's best friend and has been for almost a year (we have three of them, in case something unfortunate should happen). She calls him "Slaglagl," and this is also what she calls every bear, stuffed or real. She is so steadfast and loyal and forceful about her love that Slaglagl goes with her to school daily, and all the other kids there now also refer to bears as "slaglagls." I'm sure there are some confused parents.

Williams-Sonoma has this bear cake pan. I'd seen it, but it seemed a silly thing to buy. But then they enticed me with the words "clearance" and "free shipping," and I whipped out the ol' debit card.

Even the PAN is cute. It's adorable, really. And it looks exactly like Slaglagl. It's even the same size as he is. If Jabba the Hutt ever put a bounty on a teddy bear, it is surely what the carbonite freeze would look like.

I decided to do a test run, me-style. Which means I don't read the instructions quite closely enough, but forge ahead anyway. The cake recipe I used didn't make quite enough cake, the leveling didn't quite match up perfectly, but all in all it looked cute enough. The fancy Williams-Sonoma buttercream icing recipe seemed like kind of a pain, so I used a tub of cream cheese icing I had in the cabinet to hold the bear's halves together. Seemed to work fine.

Pookie was enchanted by the cake. "Slaglaglaglagl!" she screeched, running across the kitchen to get a closer look. She examined him, then looked at me with questions in her eyes. "....cake?" Yes, I told her. A bear cake. This was what I'd worried about: what if the thought of eating her best friend was traumatic? (Hey, to my credit I made a spice cake, not red velvet. "Deadie Bear" is for Halloween.)
After a few moments she nodded to herself and said "EAT? NOM NOM NOM!"
Guess that answers that.

Sadly, the icing didn't set up enough, and the halves pulled apart for each other, not only splitting the bear bilaterally, but also decapitating him due to the force of gravity on his neck. Brutal.

Pooks didn't seem to mind much. She even said "Nom nom nom," Cookie Monster style after she'd eaten his nose.

Oh well, I'll try again. All of the things that went wrong were undeniably my fault. So I'll regroup and take another stab at it. I'm considering making "Bearack Obearma" to take to work Tuesday. I'll even make that little logo out of fondant and everything (provided that I can keep the cake in one piece).

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Irishy Song(s) of the Day:
The way I figure it, it should be one song a day since I said I'd do this. So here are today's five songs.

The Green Fields of France - Dropkick Murphys version. Like most songs on my list, this isn't an original, it's just my favorite version of it. Warning: this video has war photos in it, it's a fan video. The song is really depressing, too. But it's a beautiful song. Just a heads-up.

Galway Girl - Sharon Shannon and Steve Earle. I grew up listening to Thistle & Shamrock every Sunday with my dad, so I'm a Sharon Shannon fan, and I love the folksy/celticy/country-ness of this song.

The Snake with Eyes of Garnet - Shane MacGowan. I love the Pogues, but I also really like a lot of MacGowan's post thrown-out-of-the-Pogues-for-spewing-on-the-first-three-rows-like-it-was-a-Gwar-show work. Inebriated, toothless and sullen may not be any way to go through life for most, but it works pretty well for an Irish folk singer.

If I Should Fall From Grace with God - Sweet Colleens version. hey, speaking of the Pogues, this is one of theirs. But I prefer the amped-up Sweet Colleens version. I keep meaning to video Pookie dancing to it, she just goes wild. (Sorry for the amazon link. You can listen to a part of this version. If you prefer the Pogues or Young Dubliners, those are on Youtube)

Big Strong Man - Carbon Leaf. I couldn't decide which Carbon Leaf song to include. It could be any of them, really, they're all very Irishy-sounding tunes from this band hailing from ... Virgina. This is My Song is also a favorite of mine.

Stay tuned for the press conference

Despite our best efforts, she's decided to forgo that senior year and declare herself eligible for the draft.

*****

Irishy Song of the Day:
The Night Patty Murphy Died - Great Big Sea. OK, they're from Newfoundland, not Ireland. But it's great celtic folk-y bawdy seafaring drinking music.

Proof that you can be a working mother, and still keep an eye on your child.

See what I mean? (Hint: look for little pigtails in the crowd)

I shot one of those "aww, nuts, how did we lose that??"-type games today. The only good thing I can say is that for the first time since I've been watching basketball closely I witnessed the "foul to get the ball back in the closing seconds" strategy actually work. But then, I worked with some really abysmal teams who couldn't have figured out "strategy" if it bit them in the butts. (The first year I traveled with basketball, the team was 6-24. 6-24, man. You didn't know whether to laugh or cry.)

Someday I'll write something more about that job. But it will require more reflection and a good bit more liquor than I have on hand tonight. (OK, OK, it's not booze, it's Theraflu.)

----

I'm going to have a "Irishy Song of the Day" addition to the blog for the next few weeks.
I tend to listen to a lot of Irish music anyway, so there isn't a lot of research going into these.

Here's the first one:

Flogging Molly - If I Ever Leave This World Alive.

Obviously, there are quite a few FM songs that could and probably will be included on this list, but this is one of my favorites. (It's not everyone's favorite - when it comes on the iPod Pookie complains because it's too slow and makes me change it to "Drunken Lullabies" so she can dance. I'll feature her favorite band next time.)

Also from today, here is the nut not falling far from the tree:

Marvel's Shamrock. She's after yer lucky charms.

Thanks to you guys for all the support of my trip. It means a lot to it, and it made me able to really look forward to this with less guilt.

With all this Ireland talk, I have to mention something that I've thought about before, but never had any reason to write down. Namely, the fact that Shamrock, the Marvel comic book heroine, is not only a fairly crappy superhero by any accepted superhero standard, but is also one of the most ridiculously stereotyped characters in comic book history.

Obviously, she's Irish. Her suit is green (and emblazoned with clovers, lest one mistake her for the Green Lanternette). Her out-of-character name is Molly Fitzgerald (and it's safe to assume her middle name is Kathleen or Erin), she's catholic, a fiery redhead, and her brother Paddy was killed in a car bomb by the IRA. Are there any generalizations about the Irish we're missing here? I don't know that it's ever mentioned if she drinks to excess and gets into bloody bar rows on a regular basis. Again, though, it's safe to assume.

Oh yes, and any superhero has to have a power...
She can shift probability in a 20-foot circle around her, rendering her luckier than others. Get it? Luck o' the Irish? That sound you hear is Wolverine howling with laughter.

Is this a wee bit offensive to anyone but me? It bears mentioning that she didn't appear until the 80's, so she isn't some throwback, racial/gender/cultural character generalization from a less-enlightened time like Black Panther or Yellow Claw were in the 50s and 60s. The 80's, man.
She's younger than me, the bonny lass!

OK, OK, comic books aren't exactly known for their promotion of equality, I understand that. Storm is the only black core X-Man (woman!), and I won't even get into body typing in female superheroes. The bottom line here is that Shamrock is just a stupid character. 

 Did I mention also that she retired from superheroing it up because she injured her leg and decided her luck had finally run out? Yep. She quit the hero biz to become one of Ireland's most sought-after hairdressers.*

* - I didn't know this last part until I looked up her wikipedia page. What am I, some kind of nerd?

<-- Also, her hair isn't red in this picture. I have no idea why. Usually she looks like a bargain-basement version of Poison Ivy. I just posted the panel so you can fully appreciate the written accent. 

A sham-rockin' trip with the girls, and the best husband ever

Enough of my sad sad whiny "I'm sick, I can't sleep," wah wah wah-ness. That's just annoying, so let's talk about something happier. Perhaps something luckier. Something greener. Like Ireland.

Yes, let's talk about Ireland.

On the spur of the moment while ago, some girlfriends and I planned a trip there, never actually thinking it would happen. But tickets were purchased, wellies bought, electrical converters procured, and we're leaving the first week of February. Slainte!

As the trip gets closer, I'm getting more and more nervous about my ability to leave the kiddo. She's staying here with DJ, she'll be fine, they'll have a blast, but that won't keep me from missing her intensely. If I think about it too hard I almost cry, I hope I didn't plan this trip too soon. It seemed like such a long far way away when we booked it - with all that was going on I think I even forgot about it for a bit.

But I know I need a break from life, and some adventure. When I found out I was pregnant way back when, one of the first things we talked about was how having a child wouldn't end my ability to travel and see/photograph the world, and how we'd make special efforts to make sure we still got out there and did things. It was my biggest fear about motherhood.
It was actually DJ who brought up that conversation when the prospect of the Ireland trip surfaced. "Go," he said. "Have a great time. Recharge. Drink some Guinness, take lots of pictures and don't worry. We'll miss you but we'll be here waiting when you get back."

And he's right. I know it doesn't make sense to some people, the need to go explore and do new things. In fact, I haven't really gotten a lot of support about this trip from some people I thought would be all about it. I've gotten some "You're just leaving the baby behind?" and "In this economy you can justify spending money to go stay in some castle halfway around the world?" And when I've mentioned these conversations to my husband, he has shrugged and said, "You know some boring, unadventurous people who are scared to live. Why do you give a shit what they think?"

He's actually gotten pretty upset a few times at the "leaving the baby" comments. He says (and I agree) that it's a terrible double standard that he, as the father, is allowed to go off to games and be gone for days at a time without a peep from anyone, but heaven forbid the mother leave the child's side for one second. He's grumbled about it more than once: "It's not like I'm a nanny or a sitter. I'm her damn Father!" I pointed out that going to games counted as "bringing home the bacon," and so he probably got a pass for that. He countered with a gruff, "That's bullshit reasoning, and it's none of their business anyway."

So assuming the guilt of leaving the baby doesn't get to me, and the fear of missing her so much I actually curl up and die in an Irish bog doesn't dissuade me, I'll be packing up and heading across the ocean.

I will eat an Irish breakfast, I will hop fences on deserted roads to get better shots of ruins from ages past, I will visit haunted castles, and I will sing along with locals in the pubs over a pint. And I will miss my baby and my husband.
But hopefully I will come back rested, stronger for the trip, with friendships strengthened and spirit renewed.  
And next time, maybe I'll just take miss Pooks with me.

ps - DJ really wanted to go on this trip, but due to basketball scheduling he had to take a rain check. He's sending me to "scout" the location for a future family vacation.

Hello insomnia, my old friend

Since Pooks was in the hospital, I've been having panic attacks at night. As soon as I lie down in the dark I start freaking out about something that I should be able to control but can't for whatever reason and that will likely destroy us all. One night it was carbon monoxide, one particularly windy night it was trees falling on the nursery, one night it was fires, etc. etc. And these thoughts plague me, torment me, until I get up and pad around the house in the dark, a silent sentry against the unknown. It's really kind of sad.

So instead of going to bed to be tormented, I just haven't been going. Some nights I've easily seen 4:30, sometimes I'll be pleased to find myself waking on the couch the net morning, with all parties unharmed. It is now 2:34, and not I've not yawned yet. Max is curled up looking at me, wondering if he should bed down on the couch for the night or head to the bedroom to his comfy dog bed. He'll go wherever I go, poor dog.

So I thought, hey, I'm up, might as well blog. I've already read every page on the internet anyway.

<-- Pooks playing with her new train set. She got some great loot this year!

Christmas was stressful. And fun, but stressful. In what is becoming a completely unacceptable Holiday tradition, Pooks woke up the Saturday night before Christmas vomiting. I was at my parents' house in Tennessee for a few days, and went up to bed, only to be met by the overwhelming smell of bile and fried chicken when I opened the door (note: we are not ever, ever eating at Zaxby's again. It smells exactly the same three hours later).

She continued to puke until the wee hours of the night, dirtying every available towel, sheet, and surface in the house. There was an impromptu bath at some point, and at the end it came full circle with warm freshly-laundered towels and stuffed animals. Finally she fell asleep on my chest, both of us stinking and matted, completely exhausted.

The next day Pooks was fine, but I decided to cut the rest of the trip short, and hotfooted it back to Boone before I got the crud as well. It was a calculated risk, of course. With Pookie and Max with me, I had no choice but to push through to home, even if the vomit monster attacked me. Luckily I made it without incident.

But you don't just get barfed on over and over (ad nauseum?) and suffer no ill effects. By Monday I was down for the count (as was my mother, who was also the recipient of Pookie's holiday presents), putting our Christmas eve plans in serious jeopardy. Long story short, we pushed through, survived, had Christmas eve celebration (I made a guinness roast. mmm), had a Christmas celebration back in TN with the family, and DJ didn't get sick until Sunday. Then I got a cough on Monday and spent all of Wednesday sick again. I'm coughing as I type this, and praying that Pookie doesn't get sick again.
I think I hate December. Can we ignore it next year?

We are considering opting out completely next year and spending the holidays in the Caymans. You would all be invited, but you might bring germs with you, and we're trying to avoid that. Sorry.

3:04 now. This post didn't take me that long to write, of course. I was engrossed in the end of "Not Another Teen Movie" on Comedy Central. It's much better than the World Series of poker that's on every other channel at this hour.