Cats Are Full of Hatred

As we've pointed out here once or twice, one of the joys of parenting is the "getting-of-the-kid-to-do-things-typically-only-adults-do-or-say". 68 million views of this video proves this tenet pretty emphatically. 68 million views, people!

For example, if you teach your child to "Give the Rock", as in: "Hey! It's so great you just hit that homerun! Give me the rock!", during awkward silences at family gatherings, you can induce the child to perform "The Rock" and everyone will laugh, breaking the silence.

This laughter re-enforces the action for the child, so they repeat it, giving "The Rock" to everyone with a hand. Once everyone gets the gist of it, though, the laughter kind of dries up. Miles, persistent and without trepidation, began to search out new "rock" partners. In doing so, he proved another fact of children: almost anything involving kids with animals increases Cuteness exponentially.

The audio for this is pretty much what you'd expect: Miles stands there, saying, "Give. Me. Rock!", punctuating each "Rock!" with a fist-to-paw bump. Non-audio, cat-communication from Butter, the cat, is also pretty much as you'd expect: "Little human, you touch me one more time and, I swear, I will chew your face off. Dammit! you did it again! Ok, one more time. . . Dammit!"

Disturbances in the Force

The past few days have seen the bloggable baby population increase by dos 'round these internets parts. While I would've assumed they'd learn from our cautionary tale, we congratulate our great friends on their exciting new additions. Max and Miles look forward to these noobs joining them at the rebel base. Give it up for Luca and Sevi!

Turn Out Like Me! Wait! Don't Turn Out Like Me! Ugh, Just Don't Kill Anyone, Ok?

By her own admission, my Mom was kind of a geek. My Dad? I'm not so sure what he was. He grew up in the middle of nowhere in North Dakota, so I suppose we should be thankful I'm not milking a cow or fixing a thresher rather than typing this. Or not.

Growing up, I don't recall a lot of explicit "We-are-watching/listening to/reading-this because-it-totally-made-me-who-I-am-and-so-now-you-will-shut-up-and-appreciate-and enjoy-this-experience" moments. The Beatles? We had a stereo, a cupboard full of records and a lot of free time. The only reason my mom had Sgt. Pepper's is because my cool uncle made her get it when it came out. "Important album," he told her. I just remember liking the album art, so I played it. Sgt. Pepper's just happened to be right next to my Dad's Dave Brubeck, which was next to his Bill Cosby.

Even with that pedigree of early influences; all that said, the first two albums I ever bought were Kiss's "Rock and Roll Over" (again, cover art!) and Kenny Rodger's "Greatest Hits". I didn't even get into The Blues until, years later, I thought The Blues Brothers was the most ZAZAWESOME movie ever (Thank you, ABC's movie of the week!) and I began digging around.

Being a parent now, though, is weird. I know two kids Max's age who have watched the first three Star Wars movies (anybody who shows their kids the most recent, three pieces of crap should have child services called 'em! Jar-Jar, people, Jar-Jar.) And even I, in an effort to re-create my childhood while simultaneously distracting the boys, have popped in the Looney Tunes DVDs. I had to put them away because, later, Max kept trying to drop our anvil on Miles and, after some suspicious Max-clicking on the computer, all these big-assed boxes were showing up from ACME Inc.

So, while I'm trying to maintain the "organic-ness" of influencing (coughcoughindoctrinatingcoughcough) the boys, I have to say, this recent exchange made me pretty happy/freaked out:

Katie needs some space; the boys have been inside most of the day; energy needs to be burned off; Dad decides some dancing is in order.

"Ok, guys, we're going to shake it to Talking Heads!"

"Oh, Dad, can I put the DVD in?"

"It's a CD, Max, not a DVD."

At this point, Miles wonders aloud, "Why. CD. Daddy?"

"Because a DVD is for watching and a CD is for listening, Miles."

"Why. Listening. Daddy?"

I ignore Miles' inane questions because, seriously, it's time to dance.

Back to Max: "Can I put the CD in?"

"Yep."

"We are listening to Talking Heads?"

The CD is loading.

"Can I listen to the 'run away' song?"

Now, for some reason, the first thing that pops into my head is that he wants to listen to Flock of Seagulls but that's seriously impossible.

"What?"

"Can we dance to the 'run away' song by the Talking Heads?"

"You want to listen 'Psycho Killer' by Talking Heads?"

Max, smiling and sort of bouncing and clapping excitedly, "Yeah! Psycho Killer!"

So we danced our asses off to "Psycho Killer".

If it's any comfort, later that evening, he also sang along with a song about photosynthesis. . . .but then he stabbed a plant.