Monday, November 22, 2010

Curious George

We read a lot of kids books around here and the other night we hit the first Curious George book written in 1941.

It is very strange... It starts out with this monkey (Curious George) all happy living in the wild in Africa and then along comes "The Man with the Yellow Hat" packing a gun, a camera and some binoculars who lures George into a trap with his hat. Then they take George back to the ship to be taken back to America to spend the rest of his life in his wonderful new home... a ZOO!

Of course Curious George gets into trouble on the way... He goes overboard trying to fly like a seagull... And as he is pulled from the water he appears to vomit seawater with fish. My kids thought that was funny... Fish in the vomit water... Ha Ha! Children really notice everything in the fine details. One of the sailors pulling him out of the water was smoking a pipe much like The Man with the Yellow Hat was two pages before... And then, low and behold, 2 pages after that Curious George is at The Man with the Yellow Hat's house and he eats a good meal and smokes a good pipe (he is in a chair smoking a pipe) and then feels tired... Nothing out of the ordinary there, it was a good pipe.

The next day he ends up in jail for a false fire alarm, but he breaks out of jail with time to steal some balloons which take him for a high ride, but everything is OK as he lands safely and the man with the yellow hat pays for the balloons (we don't want to set a bad example for the kids now do we).

And then Curious George ends up in the ZOO looking happy as a pig in shit because of course that is a GREAT place for a monkey to live.

My daughters questioned if a ZOO is that great for a wild animal to live and look forward to being old enough to smoke their first pipe.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

lice

It happens and then you have to sit everybody down shampoo their head and go through it with a fine special medal comb to remove the adults and the nits. And then of course you have to do it again (and again) in case an egg hatches and starts again the cycle of life. Did i mention the aggressive laundry cycle at 200 degrees Celsius... you have to love modern technology.

It's a pain in the ass but it's not that bad, i think parents tend to complain too much about things... look at as a chance to spend some time with your kid as you comb through their hair rather than them watching TV and you pecking away like a fool on the computer thinking you are doing something.... i find lolly pops work well. "Hey you want to suck this lolly pop... well then sit in this tub while old daddy doo does a little shampooing and combing" i say. I have also found that if you show a 3 year old a louse that you pulled out of their hair they will want to be lice free and agree to sit and suck a lolly pop while you do the business.

Unfortunately one of the twins took a shit in the bathtub as i was looking for the comb that was on the table but somehow ended up wrapped in a blanket, stuffed in a purse and placed under the lazy boy chair, lucky for me i am hip to that jive.

It is amazing that the man who was dry heaving cleaning out a litter box years ago was there picking a fresh log out of the tub in one hand and de-licing a head with the other... that is parenthood in a nutshell... when everything is falling down you just become strong and deal with it... slowly but surly.

The weird thing about the whole ordeal is how lackadaisical some people are towards the issue. Fact: we found adult lice and larvae in the hair of our family members which means we have had it for a while... eggs have been laid and hatched, so of course as a noble member of the community you need to put the word out... we have 2 kids in a daycare and one kid in a school and the kids were in camp not too long ago. Where did it come from? Could be many options and possible multiple exposures. i pointed it out to many parents that have shared head space with my kids, and most were happy to have that declared, others rather disturbingly, feel they have no fear because they haven't got a note form the school or daycare alerting them to the issue. I have a problem with that level of truculence in this fight... we need to get it out of the loop. I realize there is a stigma about having lice, and in that way it could be hard to admit, but things like this thrive on the negligent eye.