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Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Einstein Emergency

Let me start off by apologizing to everyone who has lovingly given Aiden videos as gifts. I had no idea I would end up limiting Aiden's TV watching as much as I do. I don't watch a whole lot of TV myself so it's never turned on during the day unless there is a serious storm, world-changing news or an "emergency". This results in Aiden getting MAYBE 30 minutes of TV per month.

Now, the AC in the Xterra has been on the fritz lately. We took it to our regular garage and when they couldn't be 100% sure their repairs would fix it, we took it to a local Nissan dealership. Like any dealership we got a quote for the AC fix and a half-dozen other items they found on our "free diagnostics test" totaling $1773.95 and they probably hoped that we would just throw our hands up in the air and buy a new car. I was fairly suspicious at the repair list and rather frustrated when the dealer reported they had found the radiator was a little clogged and that we needed to replace the whole thing because it was part of the AC problem. Uh, NOPE. That's not what a radiator is used for and a simple flush will unclog it but thanks any ways Robbins Nissan! (And yes, Susan at Automotive Technology in Kingwood - the HONEST garage - got a pretty big kick out of that diagnostic and their suggestion to replace the water pump, too.) Thanks, dad, for teaching me about cars.

Any ways, back to my story. I don't let Aiden watch TV unless it is a You-Must-Be-Quiet-While-I-Am-On-The-Phone emergency. Between phone calls to Brian, needing to print the fax-by-email quote and then calling my favorite garage to get a price comparison (read: 50% discount off the dealership price), I decided I needed the screaming to come to a stop so I could hear the people on the other line. In went the Baby Galileo video. We read the book with the 3D glitter stars and light-up moon to Aiden all the time so I wasn't surprised when he seemed to recognize the kangaroo. As you can see he was pretty mesmerized:



Now here is what really frosts my cookies. I have been wandering around my house for a month mooing like a cow and driving the car quacking like a duck so Aiden can sing along to Old MacDonald and I can barely get a "carc" (quack) out of him. A kangaroo puppet shows a clip of all the shiny contents of her junk drawer, followed low-budget scribbling of poorly drawn yellow stars on a blue screen with a child saying the word "star" and THERE. He can say "star" (sar). Figures.

I couldn't resist flipping through the bulk-pack of Baby Einstein videos my mom bought me, looking for something that would do the mooing for me. (Why did my pediatrician even mention at his one year appointment that he could be taught animal sounds? And why do I feel like there will be some sort of test on it when he goes in for his 15 month shots?) I hope she's impressed by his emphatic, manly ROAR when he's asked what sound a dinosaur makes. I am kind of finding the instant silence after I ask him what a cow says to be a nice break for my ears but that's just my opinion. And, oh my goodness, we haven't even STARTED on the sound that chickens, sheep and semi-automatic weapons make. (However he may have gotten a few lessons on what explicit sounds road-raged adults make.) I just know that during a round of "Wheels on The Bus" at library hour, when we're all singing 'the mommies on the bus go...', I'll hear my child repeat "You idiot! Get out of the way!"

Half-way through the box of Einstein videos I find the Baby MacDonald "Digital Board Book" DVD. (Call it whatever you want, we all know what it is. It's like fruit snacks. They're really just gumdrop candies shaped like fruit to shut your kids up in the checkout line and to convince nearby old people that they might actually have fruit in them so you don't get awful stares for feeding it to them at 10 in the morning. Might I also add a special thank you to Playtex for making their sippy cups opaque...) I make a mental note to put the Baby Macdonald video in later this week, finding a tiny bit of comfort that Disney has my back (or at least some Jedi mind tricks that seem to work) and Aiden won't be in Kindergarten before he learns how to moo.

3 comments:

Alisha said...

Tay you seriously crack me up! I love reading your blog...haha...I know those "YOU'D BETTER SHUT UP WHILE I AM ON THE PHONE" moments!

erin j bailey said...

It stinks when your child learns things instantly from media sources when you've been trying for months to teach them the same things. We've been working with Luke forever on numbers and nothing. As soon as he played a game on fisherprice.com he got them. Sheesh. What am I even here for?

Anonymous said...

Tay, you CRACK me up!! I know how you feel about TV, but those Baby Einstein videos are AWESOME! My kids have learned SO much from watching them - sounds, words, numbers, the alphabet! So, despite most of the negative stuff on TV, these are a Godsend for the little ones {and The Little Einsteins are fab for older, preschool age kiddos!}