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A Year Older, a Year Wiser
In the wake of a small family gathering for Felix's birthday, I figured out a few things.
Chocolate isn't a guarantee
Some kids, after having "Happy Birthday" sung to them and pawing at a cupcake their mothers made for them, will spy some idling blueberries and want them so badly that they will yelp and smack their mothers with chocolate coated paws. Can any child of a woman with professed candy obsessions be such a goody-two-shoes? Indeed. And then everyone will be thrilled that someone had the presence of mind to snap pictures of the frosting smeared mother holding an angry kid.
Dog hatred is contagious and annoying
Of course it is sort of a free country and people are entitled not to like dogs and not to have to deal with them. But. It would be prudent, if you have children, to figure out some method of dissembling because you run the risk of handicapping your children by translating your distaste into fear. There is no reason why children should feel it is necessary to be so threatened by small dogs that largely ignore them that they fly into hysterics and try to claw their way up their parents. If it is too much to handle, no one would blame you for calling "uncle" and asking to do something dog-free later. Being aggressively miserable at the house with the dog in it just makes the dog's owners feel rather put upon.
Everything old really is new again
Look! It's the Chatter Telephone! Felix was given one and now he knows to hold the receiver to his ear when one says "Hello! Hello!" a few times fast.
Of course, this revival is truly odd, since there is almost no chance that he will experience a rotary phone or even a telephone with a separate receiver in his lifetime. Still, I suppose this toy does what Rocky and Bullwinkle or some Pixar animation does: appeal to adults and children simultaneously for very different reasons.
A small rocking-chair can be mistaken for an amusement park ride
But only in the best way. My parents gave Felix a little rocker that I had when I was little (note the "genuine" Naugahyde seat that someday I'll recover, I promise). This thing works wonders on restless children, even the dog-shy. It encourages their little bureaucratic tendencies as they line up, take turns and bully each other on and off.
There's nothing wrong with wanting a drink afterwards
But you knew that, anyway.
posted by Elise at 9:49 AM
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