February 26, 2009

Scooby Doo vs. The Bratz

Well, Momma stayed home sick from work today... although she still participated in about four hours worth of conference calls while lying on the floor in her robe with one hand continuously massaging her forehead and temples. So since Claire was in good hands, Stew and I decided to run over to the local Denny's and grab some breakfast. Stew ordered a Grand Slam Breakfast, while I elected to go with their newest special, The Octo-Mom Plate (named after the strange, Daffy Duck look-a-like who just gave birth to eight babies). It's a new breakfast offered at Denny's. It includes 14 eggs, no sausage, and the guy at the next table pays for it.

As you might recall, Claire and Stew attend school for 90 minutes on Wednesday mornings. This week, Stew was beaming when he entered the house after school.
No, it wasn't because Claire completed multiple art projects. Side note: anytime a toddler squiggles a mark on any sort of piece of paper, the teacher's aide sends the paper home with the parent... so, Stew came home with four pieces of paper yesterday, each with a series of brown crayon scribbles on them. So watch out, Pablo Picasso! Anyway, the topic of discussion in this week's parent's class was "Media: Yesterday versus Today". They talked about how cartoon characters from the "olden days" were less violent (such as, The Roadrunner) and more wholesome (like the bunch of pot-smoking, jobless, ambiguously gay, meddling kids and their mystery-solving dog named, "Scooby") while today's cartoons depict mouthy, bootylicious, whorish, young girls (I think they call them "Bratz"). They also discussed how much "screen time" is appropriate for two and three year olds. That's when one mom said, "We don't watch TV at our house... except for when we watch Fox News." They don't just watch the news, they watch "Fox News". This apparently thrilled Stew to no end, so now I think he has a secret crush on her.

Before heading out the door for school each Wednesday, Claire packs her "school bucket". The bucket is used to carry Claire's favorite items in the event she
ever has a meltdown due to separation anxiety after song time (after song time, the parents say "good-bye" to the toddlers and go to a separate room where they smoke cigarettes and play poker using coupons instead of poker chips). Anyway, Claire always puts her zebra "Zebby" in the bucket, along with a nuk/binky/pacifier and a miniature Dr. Seuss book from Aunt Dee (Florida). Although Claire has only had one meltdown (on her first day of school here in Chaska), she still takes the bucket with her. In fact, she won't go to school without her bucket. So here's a picture of Claire holding her bucket and wearing the glasses Momma wears whenever she "puzzles" (puzzling = the nerdy act of putting together a puzzle with my Uncle Peter Karl). In the photo, Claire is clearly smiling. However, please note her natural smile looks nothing like this, but this is the face she makes when directed to "smile" for a picture.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Claire and Stew head to Tot Time at "the gym" (the Chaska Community Center). Claire especially loves to look through the big glass windows that overlook the huge indoor swimming pool and waterslide. Plus, there are always elderly ladies aquacising in the pool who enjoy waving at Claire after she starts banging on the window. But Claire's favorite part of going to the gym is "hoops!" If you ask Claire what she does at the gym, she will say "hoops!" So, it appears Stew's dream of making Claire into a star basketball player for the University of Minnesota is becoming a reality. Claire has her very own ball, and Stew even took a Sharpie and wrote Claire's name on it (as if some other 2-1/2 year old is going to steal the ball from Claire and run out of the gym with it). When Claire's not shooting hoops, she enjoys building bridges with foam cushions and running or jumping across them. Stew's favorite activity at Tot Time is to make all the moms in the gym feel REALLY uncomfortable by staring at them. And since the Tot Time gym is located on the 2nd Floor of the community center, it overlooks another basketball court. So Stew also enjoys watching what he describes as "nerds trying to play basketball" in the court below. His favorite moment is after someone actually puts the ball through the hoop and a slew of high fives ensues. "Have you ever watched a bunch of nerds trying to high five each other?" Stew once asked me. "It's hilarious!" Apparently nerds don't have the hand-eye coordination of an award-winning seller of high-quality, modestly-priced furniture who was a mediocre player but still co-captain of his high school basketball team and will never let anyone ever forget it. Ever.

In other news, one of my favorite comics - Demetri Martin - has his very own show, Important Things with Demetri Martin. If you've never seen Demetri, then I encourage you to seek out one of his shows on Comedy Central or at a comedy club near you. Par
t of his stand-up routine involves the use of a flip-chart (click the picture so you can read the flip-chart). And as any good Chaska Stewart Family member can tell you, there's a lot of utility in a good flip-chart or whiteboard (Momma uses words like "utility" and "dyad" and "stratification" whenever we have our weekly Team Stewart meetings, and she encourages all of us to use such words in sentences as often as possible). Anyway, Demetri's new show airs Wednesdays at 9:30pm (CST) on Comedy Central... just before The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I've yet to watch an entire episode because I keep forgetting that it's on, but I did catch the following skit from last night's show. I enjoyed it so much, I decided to share it with y'all. Please enjoy!



Here's another one I like...


3 comments:

Anonymous 7:09 AM  

Bogie - your post gave me lots to comment about today...
1) My dad just went back to work full time (so I can nap WHEREever I want WHENever I want - just like before). ANYWAY, at work he was talking to a guy who knows other SAHD's and asked him "Did you get shunned by the moms?" So Dad and mom had a good time walking down memory lane of ECFE classes where dad was a pariah. Until there was a nice mom at the last age 3 class who took pity on him and invited him to play dates.
2) Demetri Martin is big at our house too. You should talk Mama into getting you a Tivo, so you don't miss the show.

Okay, off to hack something onto the floor. Hang Loose.

Lexie Cat

Bogart 8:27 AM  

Lexie,

I'm not sure Stew can be considered a pariah. Quite frankly, I'm not sure what omnivorous South American river fish has to do with ECFE class??? What's that, Momma? Really? Are you sure? OK.

Lexie - I'm told I'm mistaking "pariah" for a fish called a "piranha"? And according to my Momma, Stew is indeed a pariah on several levels. Within the ECFE classes, within is own Right Wing family, and more generally within society. No wonder he's so angry all the time. Anyway, enjoy hacking up hairballs whilest you watch Demetri Martin's genius in action.

Bogey

Anonymous 11:50 AM  

Bogie - I have been recently informed that my mom is one of the elderly ladies aquasizing in the pool who's waving at Claire. And she's a little concerned because your Stewdog never waives back. Although, I guess I can understand why Stewie would avoid checking out the old ladies in the pool...maybe even more so now that he's aware that he knows two of them (aunt Susan's also aquasizing with her). We'll have to ponder this situation some more. See you tomorrow!

Susan

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About This Blog

Commentary from a stay-at-home dad on daily happenings and misadventures while helping raise a wonderful little girl. The goal is to employ wit, sarcasm and/or humor to make the blog pseudo-entertaining. Then again, setting goals never really worked for me, but maybe you'll chuckle anyway.

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