Month: December 2008

A New Christmas Record?

We all know the image of Christmas morning portrayed in movies and television.? Snow gently falling on the rooftop while you peacefully wake to the aromas of breakfast and coffee.? The innocence of pajama clad children opening presents.? Blah, blah, blah.? Here’s how it went in my house this year.

We were jarred from our sleep by the not so soothing sounds of Thing 3 standing in his crib and crying at the top of his lungs.? It was 4:50 am.

Hoping to keep the others sleeping longer, Suburban Mommy rushed to the crib to try to contain the noise.? But the genie was already out of the bottle, so to speak.

Thing 1 was the next to wake up.? He is already a morning person, full of energy the second he gets out of bed.? He is also five years old, and fully aware of what awaits on Christmas morning, so you can imagine the energy as he ran downstairs this morning.? It was 4:58 am.

Thing 2 is more of a night owl, like me.? He likes to wake slowly, lay in bed for a while, watching tv.? Also like me, he can sometimes be a bit grumpy slow to wake up.? On this morning, though, he came right out of his room to head downstairs.? As soon as he looked outside, a panic came into his three year old mind.

“Is today Christmas, daddy?”

“Yes”

“But it’s not snowing!”? [starts to cry]? “It’s supposed to snow on Christmas.? It’s never going to be Christmas!”

I suppose I can’t blame him since all the holiday shows we’ve been watching for the last month – Rudolph, Frosty, Shrek the Halls – always have it snow on Christmas.

It was 5:05 am.

We were able to hold them off from opening presents until around 6 o’clock, but the excitement was too great.? Since we said we couldn’t open presents until everyone was awake (Suburban Uncle was still sleeping in the basement), Thing 1 and Thing 2 made sure that wasn’t a problem anymore by storming in to his room and getting him up.? No wonder we don’t get house guests more often.

They made such quick work of tearing off wrapping paper that we had opened all the presents by 6:45.? I’m thinking it must be a Christmas record – all presents unwrapped before sunrise.? Which was probably about the time when others, somewhere, were waking to the peaceful scene of falling snow.

Then, we set another record shortly after the presents were all opened – the earliest fight over a new toy.? It was 7:07 am.

Should This Be A Toy Craze?

Apparently, this is a big enough story to make the front page of the Washington Post.? Forget Tickle Me Elmo and Webkinz, the hottest toy this year is a baby doll that actually poops.? Baby Alive comes with food you feed it, and then it pretends to poop.? Just like the real thing.

I don’t know, maybe I don’t get it because I only have boys, but do people really pay $59.99 for this?? I don’t see why someone would get this for their kid.

On the other hand, maybe I could see buying it for someone else’s kid.? Kind of like the toys with 6,000 tiny little pieces we would never buy for our kids, but other parents always give us as birthday presents.

Spider-Bat Lives On With StickyFan

When I introduced the world to Spider-Bat, I thought he would be a short lived phenomenon, not lasting much past Halloween.? But, the legend of Spider-Bat lives on and keeps growing.

StickyFan is a cool website that creates giant life-size posters from your own digital photos.? It’s great for action photos of your kids doing sports, but really any photo can be used.? The poster sticks to any wall or surface and can be moved over and over.

When I showed Thing 2 the five foot tall image of Spider-Bat, he was in awe and wanted him on his bedroom wall to watch over him.? Maybe with Spider-Bat in the room, he won’t get scared in the middle of the night and wake me up.? Regardless, StickyFan is worth checking out.? Tell them Spider-Bat sent you.

Rethinking The Smurfs

I’m always amazed when my kids are into stuff that I liked as a kid. Books like Cat in the Hat, games like Candyland, and now cartoons like Tom and Jerry, Superfriends, and The Smurfs. Compared to today’s computer generated animation, cartoons of the 70s are laughable. Just like the video games we played. Can you say Asteroids?

Many of the old cartoons, by today’s standards, are incredibly unpolitically correct. Bugs Bunny has racial and ethnic stereotypes. Tom and Jerry is too violent. Whatever, they still have something that kids find entertaining.

So when I saw the Smurfs again this week, I thought, here is something from my childhood that still looks good today. The animation is decent, and the story lines are pretty tame.

Except, I started to think about the whole premise of the Smurfs. A group of bare-chested boys communing in an isolated village in the woods, led by an older, fatherly figure who calls himself Papa. And then there’s the lone girl, Smurfette, who is worshiped by all the boys. It sounds like a cult, no? Papa Smurf has them all brainwashed to be afraid of an evil wizard, Gargamel. La la la-la la la.