Velcrometer
Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks
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M. Giant's Velcrometer Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks |
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Saturday, March 31, 2007 Teasing Boy Turtle update: I brought her back to the vet yesterday and Dr. M. says her red blood cell count is up from last week. Apparently it's supposed to be around thirty. As of last Saturday, it was twelve. But now it's up to eighteen, which is at least out of the danger zone. She says that last week she wasn't optimistic, but now she is. So am I. * * * M. Small met his first asshole last week. It was too rainy and cold to go to the park the other night, so I took him to the indoor one instead. The indoor park is great because it's this almost completely childproof environment where, if parents want, they can sit off to the side and keep an eye on their kids with a minimum of active supervision. But sometimes the indoor park is not so great because there are occasionally parents who sit off to the side and don't bother keeping an eye on their kids at all. One of these kids -- I'm guessing he was about three or four, with one of those mean-kid permascowls like Farkus from A Christmas Story -- imprinted onto M. Small for some reason. There are these little saucer-shaped scooters around the gymnasium area, and this kid kept zooming them towards M. Small from across the room and stopping just outside the actionable radius. His mom, meanwhile, was busy studying, which meant that even though I'd only brought one boy to the park, I found myself in charge of two. A bit later, they were working together collecting these miniature colored traffic cones. M. Small likes to stack them and line them up in long rows, but he knows enough to share. Not so the other boy. He started yelling at M. Small for not letting him have all the cones for the castle he was building. So M. Small just nabbed one and ran away, much to the other boy's noisy irritation. While M. Small and I were hanging out together at the other end of the bleachers, I'm guessing the other boy got into a bit of trouble with his mom. Because he came over and offered M. Small a couple of cones. M. Small had lost interest in cones by this point, because he was occupied with picking up discarded candy wrappers that some other rude ass had left behind. The other boy made a big deal about how he was going to bring the cones back then. Which would have been fine, except that he didn't. Instead he stood and loomed over M. Small, who responded to this unwelcome invasion of his personal space the way he normally does: with an outstretched hand to steer the offender out of his bubble. Some might call this "pushing," and this other boy was certainly one of those. He started screaming at M. Small not to push him. "Don't crowd him, and he won't," I told the other boy. I was about to intervene more actively, but the next thing I knew, M. Small was handling it way better than I would have. He just started yelling back, but laughing and smiling as he did so. Like they were playing a yelling game or something, and it was a lot of fun. The other boy didn't think it was very fun, though. "Stop yelling!" he yelled, which only made M. Small laugh harder and yell louder. "He's not mad," I told the other boy. "He's only kidding. He's just teasing." "I’m teasing you!" M. Small guffawed in agreement. "RAHR! I'm teasing you!" I just sat back and proudly watched my son take down a much bigger jerkweed with humor and mockery. The other boy failed to see the humor, however. After yelling "No you're not!" at the toddler who was telling him right out that he was only teasing, the kid returned to his mom to tattle on the two-year-old who was upsetting him so by yelling back. The last I heard, the other mom was pointing out to the other kid that he had started it, so that makes up for a lot. Flush with victory, M. Small asked me over and over, "Where's Teasing Boy?" I'm not sure if he was using the term in the sense of a boy who teases, or a boy who only exists for the teasing pleasure of others. I choose to believe it's the latter. Hence this entry. posted by M. Giant 2:54 PM 5 comments 5 Comments:Sounds like you have a wee diplomat on your hands. Can I borrow him for family gatherings?
By Awesome.
By
I like that M. Small just laughed at him--no better way to annoy a bully!
By
When my stepdaughter was about 4, she had her first encounter with an asshole. This little boy kept chasing her around the playground and trying to kiss her, and she kept pushing him away. Finally, one day she had enough and proceeded to take the boy down, sit on his chest and pound him.
By I hope my future kid is as awesome as M. Small.
By Wednesday, March 28, 2007 English Lessons, Part II Thanks to everyone who's commented and e-mailed with supportive thoughts for Turtle. I recite them to her during each of the three times a day I poke a steroid down her throat, and she seems to really appreciate it, too. The vet said she's doing well enough that she can wait until Friday to come back. I'll let you know what we find out then. * * * We've been trying to cut way down on the Kipper at home, but I think the kids are still getting to see it at day care, because M. Small is only getting more and more British. He pronounced "Arnold" as "Ah-nouwd." Half of the time, a flashlight is a "tow-ch." He tells us it's our turn to do something by asking us, "You want to have a go?" He's ending random sentences with "then," like it's a period or something. Worst of all, last week he saw a miniature soccer ball and called it a football. I wouldn't mind so much if it were just him, but it's not. Last week we received a Kipper book that Trash had ordered, which is Kipper's original medium. M. Small loves the book, and it's one of the few he'll want to have read to him over and over in the same sitting. The only problem is that I have to do Kipper's voice as close to the falsetto British accent from the cartoon as I can. If I don't, M. Small slaps me with a white kid glove. I have no idea where he got a white kid glove. posted by M. Giant 7:21 PM 7 comments 7 Comments:I am longing for an audio file! Charlie and Lola have just not been sufficient exposure to turn my toddler British.
By You're having a laugh, aren't you? Taking the mickey out of us?
By Kipper was the gateway drug for our little guy, but Charlie and Lola are hardcore. He's gone from talking to himself in a British accent, to using it on his grandparents, and now perfect strangers get the "rawthah" treatment. It didn't help that we lived in England for 6 months when he was three (which is where he first saw Kipper). I'm expecting him to get ragged on so bad by all his rural Midwestern peers when he starts kindergarten this fall.
By
AUDIO FILE! AUDIO FILE! AUDIO FILE!
By Screw audio - I want an audio and a video tape. I think it's the least you could do...
By That's hilarious, because I live in London and my little boy (2 1/2) talks like an American (although he knows the British and American words for most things). Of course, his favorite shows on TV are the Sesame Street things I import from the U.S.
By I too have a little Brit at home - she loves the Charlie and Lola, and I have to read all the associated books in my best Brittish voice. Add to this that my husband sucks at accents, so whenever he reads the books, she is constantly correcting his pronunciation.
By Saturday, March 24, 2007 Turning Turtle Turtle's been through four fatal diseases in the last 24 hours. We've noticed she's been losing weight, so we made an appointment to take her to the vet yesterday after work. Turns out she's lost two pounds since December, and she wasn't a big cat to begin with. On the way in, the carrier was so light that one time I checked to make sure she was really in there. The vet, Dr. M., got very quiet when she was checking Turtle out, which is never a good sign. Feeling around Turtle's belly, she discovered something really big in there, either an enlarged liver or spleen. After her initial examination and some time in the back, she came back with the first three things she thought it might be. One was feline leukemia. One was Feline Immunovirus, or FIV, which is kitty HIV. One was FIP, which is Feline Infectious Peritonitis. None are treatable. All are terminal. FIP is the hardest one to check for, so we had to rule out the other two first. The techs drew about three gallons of blood from her and I brought her home totally bummed. She wasn't happy either. Dr. M. called this morning to say they'd ruled out leukemia and FIV, and if I wanted to bring her in today for an X-ray, we could go from there. I actually had to drop her off for a couple of hours this time. Turtle barely holds still for pictures of her outside, let alone her guts. When I got back, she told me that they'd eliminated FIP as well. Which I thought was good news. Dr. M. led me to the back room and showed me the X-ray films of Turtle's spleen. Now, normally a kitty's spleen is too small to even show up on an X-ray. However, Turtle's was approximately the size of, well, Turtle. Dr. M. hadn't initially thought that Turtle could have cancer at her age (she's not even three yet), but the size of the spleen indicated a likely mass cell tumor somewhere in there. Her best-case scenario was having her spleen removed and hoping that got it all. But before we did that, Dr. M. suggested an ultrasound and liver biopsy to make sure there wasn't any cancer in the liver as well. Because if there is, taking her spleen would be a waste of time and a boatload of trauma for nothing. Even more bummed when I got home with her this afternoon. Trash and I discussed it. We agreed that we'd wait to hear survival statistics on this kind of thing from the vet, but that if Turtle was going to be suffering, we wouldn't prolong it. M. Small was dirty from his visit to the park with Trash and Bitter, so I gave him his bath. Bummed. I was drying him off when the phone rang. We missed the call because I'd left the cordless upstairs, but the caller ID indicated the vet's office. But it had closed an hour before, so we couldn't call back. I handed a barely-diapered M. Small off to his mom and dashed back up to the vet's to try to catch Dr. M. as she left. Which, since it's only an eight-block drive, only took me a couple of minutes. She was still there, but only because she'd thrown together some prescriptions for Turtle and was going to tape them to the front door for us. Prescriptions? For the Big Casino? Well, when the final bloodwork came in, it turned out that her red blood cell count is consistent with a form of anemia, which may be what's causing the enlarged spleen. So it's possible there's no cancer in there at all. The even better news is that this form of anemia is treatable with Prednisone. Dr. M. stood there in the empty building and talked to me for like ten minutes, telling me what was going on and answering all my ignorant questions. We still have the ultrasound scheduled for a week from Monday just in case, but we might be able to cancel that if her red blood cell count has gone back up and her spleen starts shrinking. Fingers crossed. I'm worried, but I've lost a cat before and lived through it. The one I'm really concerned about in this is M. Small. He already knows she's sick and has remarked to me a couple of times, "You took Turtle to the doctor." I really hope I don't have to explain to him that Turtle got so sick that she couldn't come back. If the three of us have our own cats, Strat is mine, Phantom is Trash's, and Turtle is his. They were babies together. He used to sit in his Intellitainer and wave a kitty toy for her longer than he'd do anything else, including sleep. She's the only one of the three of them who will always put up with his shit. I really, really hope she's only anemic. Excuse me, I have to go give my son's cat her pill and a hug. 
posted by M. Giant
9:30 PM
13 comments
13 Comments:Poor Turtle! I hope the medication fixes her up.
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Oh, mannn. But hey: Turtle's an unpredictable lil' beast. I bet her diagnosis is just as unlikely to go to those scary places it might have.
By Thanks everyone. And yes, Dr. M is the best.
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Shouldn't that be M. Doctor?
By I hope he gets back to tip-top shape soon, he's a cutie pie.
By Praying for anemia! Man, I never thought I would be saying those words.
By
Irony of ironies, my dog is currently getting an ultrasound for spleen issues as well (her liver is involved, too, which makes it all even more bumming). AND my 19-month-old already asks for her while he's eating, and gets upset when she leaves the room. So I'm mentally there with you on all counts.
By I hope your vet is right about the anemia. Since she took a boatload of blood, I'm assuming she's ruled out kidney disease and hyperthyroidism, which are the problems that sent most of my elderly cats down the prolonged (and ultimately fatal) weight-loss slide. Looks like Turtle's too young for those problems though, so hopefully prednisone (the wonder drug that works wonders) will fix her right up. Good luck!
By I hope your Turtle gets well soon and there's no need to difficult conversations with M. Small.
By Oh, please get better, Turtle! And Jennifer's dog.
By Oh no! Turtle's kitty cousins are crossing their paws for a speedy recovery. We just found out one of ours has a heart murmer, so well I know that sinking feeling, when you are suddenly confronted with your beloved pet's mortality. It ain't fair.
By Sending so many positive intentions for Turtle! I know she's got a lot of friendship left to give to M. Small. She's not going anywhere.
By Thinking warm fuzzy thoughts for Turtle!
By Tuesday, March 20, 2007 Crap Reviews In his childhood memoir The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, Bill Bryson talks about asking his teacher for a bathroom pass and being asked whether he has to go "number one or number two." Little Billy responded, "I don't know, but I gotta do a big BM. It might even be a four or a five." He got in a bit of trouble for that. Sometimes, after I've been in the facilities for a while, Trash might ask me, "How was it?" She means it mockingly, of course, but it always backfires. That's because there is no possible answer that won't completely gross her out. And I know, because I've tried them all: "Splendid." "Epic." "Spectacular." "Almost as good as the entire book I read while I was in there." "Honestly, I'm kind of regretting opting for the extra-hot salsa the other day." "Let's just say I'm glad we don't have a low-flow toilet." "A little rushed, and therefore kind of unsatisfying." "Not my best work, frankly." "Do you mean like on a scale of one to ten, one being a couple of bald M&Ms and ten being maternity leave?" "Really just a prelude or preamble to a longer-format piece that I'm planning for later. An overture, if you will." "Early caramel undertones, but with a woody finish." "Once the initial urgency passed, I was able to really hit my stride in the middle stretch, ultimately reaching new levels of self-expression." "Go see for yourself. It's quite a pliable medium if you have the proper diet." "For a second there I think I levitated." And then she abruptly ends the conversation. I don't know, I'm getting mixed signals here. Labels: scatology posted by M. Giant 8:08 PM 5 comments5 Comments:Yay, poo humor! Seriously, that post made me laugh. Thanks. :-)
By I hope I never hit an age where poop is not hysterical. :)
By My husband is the master at horrifying poop description... he once described his...ummm... transaction as an "inverted cadbury egg". *Shiver*
By Aww, poor Trash. My SO does not take joy in poop so much as he does farts. Nice, quiet, smelly ones right when he knows I'm going to pass into striking zone. I think it's his way of trying to get me to stop serving him so many vegetables.
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You're lucky. Sometimes I think my job is going to ruin the fun of poop for me, forever.
By Saturday, March 17, 2007 Superfan Trash and I have been to two Timberwolves games this season. Her dad has season tickets, and they're really great seats -- not Spike Lee great, but about eight rows up off the floor. They'd be even better if the rows were further apart, but you can't have everything. I just hope these seats aren't wasted on me, because I'm nobody's idea of a sports fan. I mean, my first post here was five years ago Monday, and I think this is the first time I've written about sports. But Trash digs basketball, plus it's nice to get out of the house and drink beer in public for an occasional evening. The seats we borrowed are even better, though, because there are servers there. As in, waitrons who bring food and beer right to us. I didn't know that everyone doesn't get that until the other night. I was picking the tomatoes out of my chicken wrap with the tiny plastic sword used to spear the fruit garnish, and Trash asked me why I hadn't ordered it with no tomatoes. I gestured at the three-quarters-full arena and said, "I'm not going to make her deal with special instructions when she's got fifteen thousand other people to serve as well." Trash gently explained to me that this wasn't exactly the case. Next time I'm asking for no tomatoes. My sister DeBitch the Elder was nice enough to come over and babysit. We weren't too worried about what time she got there, because it's not like we absolutely have to be there in time for the kick-off. M. Small was like, "Bye!" and we were on our way. The first time we went, Trash said she would answer any questions I had about the game, but that turned out to not be entirely sincere. Last time she would just kind of look at me. I thought it was because I was sitting on her left and she can't hear as well through that ear. This time I sat on her right. I thought it would be harder for her to ignore my questions this time, but since most of the basketball field was to our left, I ended up spending a lot of time directing my questions at the back of her head. "What does K.G. stand for?" "Wouldn't it be easier if they just carried the ball instead of bouncing it all the time?" "Who let that white guy on the field?" "Do you think the people who wipe up the sweat are only doing it so they can get into the league someday?" "Don't you think it's odd that most of the cheerleaders are actually kind of ugly?" "Is that or is it not the absolute worst comb-over you've ever seen?" "Why are they shooting at each other's baskets now?" I got better, though. In fact, I'd say I'm an excellent basketball spectator now. I'm great at picking which one of the cartoon Chevrolets will win the fake race around the arena, and I stood up and cheered for the two suburban chicks playing tic-tac-toe during the second quarter stretch. So far I haven't won anything or caught a home run, but I think that's just going to take more practice. And most importantly, I'm really good at picking the right time to leave to beat traffic. When there's seven minutes left and the Tea-Wolves (that's what we call them here for some reason) have just come back from a 12-point deficit to steal the lead? Nobody leaves then, so you've got the roads to yourself. In fact, I've gotten so good at going to basketball games that I suggested we buy season tickets of our own next year. Of course, we'd have to let other people use them a lot, because I wouldn't want to go more than once every couple of months or so. Labels: sports, sports fans, sports jacket posted by M. Giant 1:40 PM 3 comments3 Comments:I'm with you! Every couple of months is just about...perfect! (I grew up with sport fanatics as father and brothers, and sister. Not my cup of tea.) The game does sound like fun, the way you watch, hehe.
By
Our new place in Chicago will be just a couple of blocks from the red line, so we can take the El right to Wrigley Field and see the Cubs some beautiful summer Sunday afternoon.
By
Your basketball questions crack me up. It took me five years of being at almost every Sixers home game (hazard of my job) to realize that they have to bring the ball past midcourt before 8 seconds have elapsed or else they turn the ball over.
By Wednesday, March 14, 2007 English Lessons I don't know how much Kipper M. Small gets to watch at day care, but I'm beginning to wonder if maybe it's too much. It seems to be turning him kind of British. I first noticed it the other night at dinner. Obviously he's still of an age where not all of his food makes it into his mouth, but he's oddly possessive of what ends up in the floor, even though it's clearly far past his sphere of influence. So Strat comes sniffing around a few dropped mac & cheese noodles -- just out of curiosity more than out of any chance that he'll want to eat any -- and M. Small sees this happening and protests, "No, Straht! You cahn't take them!" "Who is Straht?" I asked. He corrected his pronunciation, but it was too late. I was on to him. And I knew to start looking for other examples. He's been saying "cahn't" a lot the past few days, but that's not all. He's also taken to saying "ready, steady, go," and, most damning of all, saying "biscuit" when he means "cookie." The alarming thing is that "cookie" was his first -- and, for months -- his only food word. And now he's thrown it over in favor of "biscuit." I shit you not, today he actually asked me, "Shall we have a biscuit, then?" So my question is, how young is too young to start affecting a British accent? I don't remember how old Madonna was when she started, but I'm pretty sure she was over two and a half. I know he'll grow out of it. But are we sure that we want him to? Maybe we should encourage this. Trash and I could start talking exclusively in horribly fake British accents in his presence. We could start plunking him down once in a while in front of BBC America in place of tapes of Curious George. Sure, the latter teaches him about math and science, but think of all the even better stuff he could learn from things like Hex and Footballers Wives. When the day comes that he asks us to change his nappy, we'll know our work is done. Labels: boot, knickers, perspex posted by M. Giant 7:12 PM 9 comments9 Comments:
Fantastic! Kipper is adorable so he can't go far wrong there. Or plonk him in front of Doctor Who s1 and let him get a Mancunian accent to go with that cute smile and he'll be a heart breaker. Just, for pity's sake, don't let him watch 'Upstairs Downstairs' - he'll end up sounding constipated.
By
In our house, it was an Australian accent thanks to the Wiggles... our kiddo began asking for a "b'nahnah" and loved it when Daddy would beep the horn on his "big, red cahh" as he pulled out of the driveway to go to work each day.
By I'd take it even one step further, and have him watch ESPN's international soccer coverage, rugby matches, and cricket matches. Then he can be sporty with an English accent.
By We had a British nanny when I was a kid - my sister and I were old enough that it didn't rub off, but my baby brother was just learning to talk at the time, and he also started with 'lorries' and 'biscuits' and 'jumpers' and the long As in everything. So cute! It wears off quickly, though.
By That is ace! Why let your boy be some mong-faced old Colonial wanker, when he could be a smashing young lad? I say we pop down the pub and have a natter over a pint and some chips, and we'll suss out a right plan. His Bibs will be pulling tiny lil' birds left and right, won't he?
By Same thing happened at my house, although I don't think we progressed as far as biscuit. Lots of ready steady go. Too much Kipper and Changing Rooms and Ground Force. I kind of miss it now.
By Oooh... try 'Charlie and Lola'-- awesome British cartoon that they're playing on the Disney Channel now. Their accents are awesome, and will perhaps reinforce the Britishness. When he says, "Easy-peasy lemon-squeezy", you know you have a limey on your hands...
By I was watching Kipper with my niece and Kipper was talking about his torch, which I'm sure you know he pronounces 'to-ch'. I spent about ten minutes trying to explain to a four year old that he was really saying 'torch' and it's just how the Brits say flashlight. Then, I spent another half an hour trying to explain the concept of other countries and accents to a Midwestern child who'd never been outside her state. In the end, I just agreed with her that he was clearly saying to-ch. Damn Kipper.
By I rarely suggest people take parenting advice from me. But, chicks dig boys with accents.
By Saturday, March 10, 2007 Up, Up and Away M. Small has had a complicated relationship with hot air balloons, ever since he first encountered them in person on his second birthday. Stage one: Change-my-diaper terror (below).  Stage two: Driving away from the Balloon Fiesta grounds (and airs, as it were), seeing several dozen at a distance, and wanting to touch them again. Stage three: Returning to the Balloon Fiesta a couple of nights later for the "glow-deo," and a return to diaper-fouling fear of the things (below).  Stage four: Always asking to see hot air balloons on the computer, forcing us to drop whatever we're working on and browsing through our nine hundred pages of Balloon Fiest pictures on our Flickr account so he can name them all and point out the one he got to touch. Stage five: Discovering his favorite George and Martha story, "The Flying Machine." George and Martha are these two hippos in short-short stories for children. In one fo the stories, George tries to fly, but decides his hot air balloon basket is too heavy, so he climbs out and it leaves without him. There are more words in this paragraph than there are in the story. Stage six: Visiting the hot air balloon museum in Indinola, Iowa a few months ago, he picked out a pair of socks with hot air balloons on them. He would pick them out every morning to wear if we would let him. We don't. You might think that such small feet wouldn't get very ripe. You'd be wrong. Stage seven: Deciding to become a hot air balloon pilot himself (below).  This was all his idea. Trash and I were in the kitchen, and we heard him calling from the living room. He was sitting in this empty copy paper box, reaching for that dangling ribbon and yelling, "Mommy! Daddy! I want to ride in my hot air balloon!" Consider it done.  The only thing is that you kind of have to look out for some wicked wind shear in the hallway. Ever since we closed off the old door to the study, weather patterns in there have been kind of unpredictable. Of course, you don't want to encourage your child's daredevil tendencies too much. Things could end badly.  P.S.: They didn't. Labels: helium, hot air, hydrogen, whatever posted by M. Giant 7:54 PM 10 comments10 Comments:Those pictures of him in the box are adorable. It was pretty darn clever of him to think of that, too! Little kids can be so ingenious.
By He is really cute. And smart!
By This is pretty great... but it'll only be like 10 or 12 years before he goes through the exact same process with girls.
By
OH MY GOD HE'S SO *CUTE*! Seriously, that is one cute kid.
By Awwww, that is absolutely adorable. What a great mommy and daddy you guys are. :)
By What an incredible family - I love seeing the pictures of Trash with M. Small, and you with M. Small. And what a smart (and cute) kid.
By The picture with M. Small in the box and you holding him melts my cold MN heart. Great picture.
By
I think it should be noted that I think the best picture of the series was excluded:
By He would love the picture book "Hot Air Henry." It's about a cat that flies off in a hot air balloon. It's by Mary Calhoun. My kids adored the Henry books when they were little.
By I love this blog... kudos M. Small on your hot air balloon.
By Wednesday, March 07, 2007 Wheels Up M. Small has finally seen Cars -- or, as he calls it, Race Car and Tow Truck (the Mater) all the way through -- in several short installments, and with the scary parts skipped past, but at least he's made it to the end. And so have I, so that now when he points at certain of his Cars toys and asks me who Ramon and Guido are, I can tell him instead of stuttering, "Uh, the voice of Cheech Marin and some, uh, pit crew guy. Look, he's holding tires!" I'm not ready to undertake explaining to my two-year-old who Cheech Marin is and why he's famous. Sure, I could pretend his career started with Nash Bridges, but that would be dishonest. Anyway, he gave it a positive review: "One more and that's it," he asked, which is what he says at the end of a Curious George or Kipper short. There's no reason he should get that feature-length cartoons don't work that way; fortunately, Pixar closing credit sequences are entertaining enough that it provides a gentle transition. Another thing I'd like to thank Pixar for providing? All the fun little details they put in their movies that are going to help me sit through this one God knows how many times over the next few years until he's old enough to deal with Toy Story. And of course we still have "Mater and the Ghost Light" to look forward to, not that I appreciated all the unsubtle plugs for that short in the movie proper. Shut up, Mater, I'll watch your little movie when I'm damn good and ready. Anyway, this time, instead of us making a big event out of his first movie viewing, we let him set the pace himself. It was triggered last Sunday when Trash was watching the Oscars on the upstairs TV and the opening sequence featured a cameo from Lightning McQueen. "That's Mike McQueen!" cried M. Small, noticing him on the screen ("Lightning McQueen" is kind of a mouthful for him). But McQueen was only on for a couple of seconds, which wasn't nearly enough for M. Small. He wanted more. But what to do? If we didn't have that Cars DVD sitting down in the basement, he'd be out of luck. But we did, so we went down and watched the first twenty minutes or so. This time I knew where the upsetting part in the beginning was, so we were able to skip right past that without his noticing the difference. I'm pretty sure he hasn't yet developed the trained cineaste's eye to tell him when some after-market hack (i.e. me) has fucked with a film's editing. Over the rest of the week, he would occasionally ask to watch "some more Race Car and Tow Truck (the Mater)," and if it wasn't almost time for bed or to go someplace and he hadn't recently thrown anything, we'd agree. Such was how we ended up getting through the whole movie eventually. When I wasn't much older than M. Small, there were no VCRs so if your dad wanted you to see a Disney movie, he'd have to pack you and your older sister in the car to give mom a break at home with the baby (or to give himself a break from the baby -- looking back, I'm really not sure which). Even worse, at that time Disney was putting out unmitigated shit like Superdad. I'm pretty sure my dad took us to movies before that, but this is the first one I can remember any of. All I recall is being confused as to why Bob Crane's daughter was different ages in different scenes. I would have been even more confused had I known what Bob Crane was up to behind the scenes. Of course, none of this is my dad's fault. He deserves credit just for getting us out of the house. You think we've ever dared bring M. Small into a movie theater? Hells no. Maybe when he's twelve. Labels: Cat from Outer Space, Herbie Rides Again, kill Dean Jones posted by M. Giant 4:17 PM 3 comments3 Comments:
M. Small hasn't seen Toy Story yet? My daughter has watched that since the cradle (she's 4 now.) (Mainly because it's one of my favorites. :))
By "Race Car and Tow Truck (the Mater)" sounds a little like "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter." Maybe you have a budding Tom Stoppard on your hands there.
By My 6 & 2 yr olds LOVE Cars. My autistic 6 yr old can do every line of dialogue right along with the movie. Talk about annoying . . .. For a special treat, there's an easter egg accessible from the menu. Let the menu run for a while (about 5 passes of the Piston Cup trophy) and a Dinoco logo appears in the lower right of the screen. Click on it and you see a take-off on Boundin', the Academy Award nominated short from Pixar (the original Boundin' is on the Incredibles DVD, disk 2). My 2-yr-old loves the Jack-Jack short on the Incredibles disk also. And yes, we are total geeks who owned everything Pixar had released even before we had kids).
By Saturday, March 03, 2007 Nuts M. Small's relationship with his friend Squirrel Goodnut continues to progress. During our errands last weekend, one of the things we picked up was a big plastic bag of black sunflower seeds. The guy at the hardware store told Trash that's what squirrels like. "Why are you encouraging that squirrel?" I hissed at Trash over M. Small's head. She just cocked hers back at me, like, not in front of the boy. This was after I had just spent ten minutes in the hardware aisle alone while M. Small and Trash browsed through flashlights and electric drills, during the second minute of which I realized that I had somehow ended up with temporary custody of M. Small's Trader Joe's balloon. Try not to feel like an idiot asking for 3/16" machine bolts when you have a bright-yellow sphere of latex and helium bobbing over your head. So anyway, Trash and M. Small were all excited about getting some food for Squirrel Goodnut, and I was not to harsh their mellow. When we got home, the first thing we did was put some food out in the snow for M. Small's corpulent little rodent buddy. Funny thing about M. Small: whatever it is he's doing right now? He wants to keep doing it. When it's bathtime, he doesn't want to get undressed, and when bathtime is over, he doesn't want to get out, and when he's dried off and in his PJs he doesn't want to stop being rocked and read to, and then in the morning he doesn't want to get out of bed. Same goes for feeding the squirrel, as it turns out. Once he was putting out squirrel food, he didn't want to stop putting out squirrel food. And Trash was no help at all in imposing restraint. There was squirrel food on the deck, the deck railing, the deck bench, the deck steps, the patio at the foot of the deck, the yard, and I think the roof. The only place that didn't have squirrel food on it was the feeder hanging from our laundry line pole. Not for lack of trying, though. Trash would keep pouring a bit into M. Small's mittened hand -- which holds about a dozen seeds -- and then I would walk down the length of the driveway carrying him while he carried the food. Then I would step over the snowbank into the foot-deep drifts of the yard, trekking towards the feeder with snow in my shoes. And then two steps away he'd throw the seeds in the yard. At least three times he did this. The third time I told him to make sure to hold onto the seeds until we got to the feeder. I stood in the driveway, explaining to him in great detail why this was important. He nodded and looked me in they eye and said he understood. And then three steps in he threw the seeds in the snow. Pretty much all we'd accomplished was wasting three handfuls of squirrel food and soaking my socks. "How about one more?" he asked me. "How about no," I said. When we got back to the deck, Trash had covered it in enough sunflower seeds to carve crop circles in. "Is the idea to make it so the squirrel can no longer run?" I asked her. "We're going to have to get more next week," she told me. A month's supply doesn't last as long as it used to. The seeds lay untouched for a couple days, probably because the squirrel decided that it was nice of us to feed it again and all, but it was going to hold out for some more of that marshmallow fudge, thanks. And then one day we got home from work and he got home from day care and there was nothing left but shells and hulls, and Trash got out the squirrel food bag out and there we went again. Trash stays home with M. Small on Fridays, and this Friday they watched out our bedroom window to the backyard while Squirrel Goodnut actually made an appearance at an hour where M. Small could see him. There was another squirrel with him, whom M. Small identified as Squirrel Goodnut's "tiny baby cousin." This "cousin" is of course neither "tiny" nor a "baby," but a normal-sized squirrel, not the cat-sized one our son has seen fit to adopt. I'm kind of surprised that Squirrel Goodnut is deigning to eat actual squirrel food, but then I noticed something else. For various random reasons, out on our deck we have a case of Mr. Freeze ice pops that I never bothered to put away. You know, those clear plastic tubes of colored sugar water that are like long popsicles without a stick? We like those in the summer. Turns out Squirrel Goodnut likes them in the winter. He's been burrowing into the snow that buries the case, hauling the ice pops out one or two at a time, and gnawing them open, leaving half-empty, flaccid plastic sleeves at the base of his tree amid Pollockian pastel stains in the snow. I guess all those sunflower seeds made him thirsty. Labels: pop rocks, Soda, squirrel digestion posted by M. Giant 9:04 PM 5 comments5 Comments:
This?
By Otter Pops! That's what those popsicle things are. The blue ones rule.
By M. Giant, if a bunch of people continue to read about M. Small and decide they have to have one of their own and the world population pings, I hope you realize that it's your fault.
By imagining that squirrel at the base of a tree sucking on a chilly willy (which is what we used to call them in the 80s) -- now that's pretty funny.
By M. Small likes his animals. I was very impressed with Trash for taking him to the pet store to look at fish this weekend, on the theory that if you like fish, the pet store is free, and Underwater Adventures costs $15.
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