What's the Deal With Cartoons These Days?

We’ve been watching a lot of cartoons around here lately.

As my brain absorbs snippets of animated goodness here and there, I’ve noticed a few things. First off, where the crap did all these cartoons come from?

Growing up, we were lucky to catch the few hours of cartoons every Saturday morning. Even then, a 30-minute show was more like 10 minutes of actual show with all the commercial time. (Remember the animated X-Men show? That was the worst when it came to commercials.)

Ahh...the 90s X-Men cartoon was the best. Who cares you only got about 10 actual minutes of show time with all the commercials? We were learning an important lesson -- delayed gratification.

Tiffany informed me there’s some new law where networks aren’t allowed to inundate children with commercials during certain hours. Instead, there’s a PSA, like look at this good boy making his bed, every 20 minutes or so. Even then, the PSAs are about 30 seconds. Why didn’t my congressman care to protect me from rampant commercialism when I was a child?

With Charter, we have seven (SEVEN!!) channels that play cartoons/kids’ shows all day long. That’s not even counting on-demand and Netflix.

That said, I’ve noticed a few trends with today’s cartoons. I could be wrong, but things seem more outlandish. Here are a few examples.

Rolie Polie Olie

I'm not even sure what this show is about. All I know is "Winky Ball" sounds dirty.

I was checking email one morning when my subconscious picked up this little gem from “Rolie Polie Olie.” Apparently they play something called Winky Ball in this show. Olie was a bit distraught about the upcoming game. Here’s a direct quote.

“I’ve been winked the last 15 games straight. I don’t want mom and dad to see me wink out again.”During the exchange, Olie is speaking to his grandpa, who comforts him by revealing that Olie’s dad has the longest wink out slump ever.

Is it just me, or is there a bit of innuendo here? Couldn’t they have gone with a better name than Winky Ball? I’d assume baseball is the closest sport to Winky Ball. Still, in baseball, you don’t “base out.” Nor do you get “based.”

Jake and the Neverland Pirates

Clearly Jake uses a lot of hair gel. Wonder where pirates keep their gel? I'd keep mine by the barrel of oranges for scurvy prevention -- you know, in the "essentials" area of the ship's hold.

Ah, Disney’s Peter Pan spin-off. Though it’s been watered down significantly.

For starters, Captain Hook is less of an evil nemesis and more of a bumbling distraction. (More on the watering down of bad guys later.)

Next, Jake’s sword is wooden. C’mon! In one episode, he was singing a song about what all he could do with his sword. As he sung about cutting vines with it, my clever wife declared, “I doubt it, since it’s made of wood. Maybe you could start a campfire with it.” Kudos.

Throughout every episode, Jake and his crew get gold doubloons for doing good deeds. I have a few issues with this. First, the gold doubloons appear out of nowhere. More disconcerting though – are we teaching children every good deed should come with the expectation of monetary compensation?

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

And, there's Pete, looking all evil. In the cartoon, he's more of an inconsiderate friend.

Ah, our favorite. My biggest gripe involves Pete.

Pete used to be a bad guy. His Wikipedia entry includes Attila the Hun and Blackbeard as part of his ancestry.

In Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, he’s inconsiderate at best. In one episode, Pete steals some crystal statues from Mickey. When the gang catches up with him in a secret jungle temple, he deploys some fairly nefarious traps.After bypassing the traps, Mickey and the crew finally catches up with him. He has some terrible excuse about just wanting the see the crystal statues up close because they’re so pretty. Mickey seems to forget that he was nearly killed by his shenanigans. “Awww, shucks Pete.”

C’mon!! He’s a bad dude. Don’t let him off that easily. At the very least, stop inviting him to the costume parties, talent shows and other soirees. But, nope, there he is in every episode, doing clearly evil things that are shrugged off every time.

Oh, also what’s with the Toodles? Every time you have a serious problem, you should just hit the easy button and the perfect solution just appears?

All right, enough griping. "Sophia the First" is on and she appears to have a serious ice swan problem. I need to watch this.

Nesting... Again

There are no shortage of children around the hallowed halls of the SFA. Among the 3 of us we have approximately 35 kids. Well, at times it feels like that. However you do the math, it makes for some great stories and some 180+ blog posts. This will not be a great story, but more of a brain dump on what happens to me when we are getting close to baby time.

Gonna need a wider lens for another kid.

So this will be my fourth and final kid. I've paid good money to a doctor to make sure of that. There's a lot going on around the house these days. We closed on our new house in January and we found out we were pregnant 2 days prior to closing. Since then its been a whirlwind of unpacking boxes and getting settled into the new house. What we didn't realize or even think about when moving in was that the two oldest (both girls) were going to room together and would need a larger room to fit all their clothes, beds, and emotions. So, instead of the typical "lets get the baby's room ready" it has turned into "lets move everyone's bedroom to accommodate the small pink room for the baby". So instead of 1 room to get ready, we've had 3 (we had to move my son out of his room). At least we are having a girl and the girls' room was pink to begin with. Hooray for no painting.

Seems quiet... Too quiet.

Clothing and everything else baby... When we had our 3rd kid almost 2 years ago, we were done. No mas. So we did what every other couple would do, give everything away. All the standard baby stuff was not needed anymore: Changing table, High Chair, shoes the size of my ear... All gone. So there was a small freak out session of not knowing where the F we would get all this stuff. We really weren't up on the idea of buying all new baby stuff. Luckily we have been showered with people's leftovers. You know the people that said they were done with kids and actually meant it???? We have been very blessed to have almost 2 of everything now and we have to kind of turn stuff away. So, with this influx of new stuff, it adds some additional stress of "where are we gonna put it all?" This is slowly becoming a non-stress issue, but I am sure we are missing stuff. Like Diapers. We need small diapers!!! Damn it. I'll go to the store this week and get some.

Finally there's me. I usually do something kind of stupid and pointless before a child is born. I am waiting for it to happen. Usually it involves me, booze, a late night, and a bad decision to gamble or almost get my ear cut off . However, I think I have it mitigated that this time. I signed up for my first Olympic distance Triathlon. So, I've always been a runner and last year, I did my first Tri. It was fun. I did one earlier this year but the distance was pretty short. This will be a large test of energy to finish. So hopefully this goal will keep me from doing stupid stuff from here on in.

What I am still amazed with every time we have a baby is how my wife deals with it. The physical stress it has to put on the body is remarkable and how she hasn't disowned me with the first 3 is beyond comprehension.

Oh its a girl. BTW.

When the kids are away...

So the fates have intervened and my wife and I are childless until at least Thursday of this week. Which means "staycation."

Rather than waste the week blogging, I'm just going to enumerate the top 10 things I'd like to accomplish while I am sans kids. Some of these I've already done, some are still "to-do."

1. Sleep totally nude. Even for naps.
2. Nap.
3. Work as late as I want to, practices (which are no longer relevant) be damned.
4. Be as loud as I want to be during... Family Feud.
5. Decant wine (which will be dinner) in things I wouldn't normally decant wine in.
6. Watch Family Feud twice in a day.
7. Grocery shop with my bride.
8. Eat out every night, even though our pantry is full.
9. Brush exactly one set of teeth before bed.
10. Jury duty. Not exactly by choice, on the agenda nonetheless.

What you wild and crazy people do if you didn't have any kids lying around?

The Father's Day that wasn't

I would like a do-over... Some might think I am being selfish, but it was Father's Day. The day started off like any other awesome day. I was showered with presents from my children. I got a tie that anyone would be proud to wear in public, a Manchester United Jersey, some fantastic Chocolate covered walnuts, and these two books (which seem worthy of a review at a later date).

These are pretty high quality gifts. I mean one would think it was my birthday or something.

I was about to take my youngest on a walk that morning. This is kind of becoming a morning ritual where we walk for about a quarter mile and then I carry him back a quarter mile. It's fun and I enjoy it thoroughly. Well before set out for our jaunt, we all decided to try the chocolate walnuts...

The boy didn't like them. He spit most of it out after a bite or two and wasn't having it. Then he started coughing, and having trouble breathing, and vomiting, and pretty much freaking out all together.

A side note that this happened last weekend after eating a bite LUNA bar. We went to Urgent Care and then were directed to the ER.

At 20 months old he's the size
of a small European country

Well, this weekend was no different. After a briefing from our neighbor, an RN, we headed off to the ER... again. They did a similar procedure this week and took some x-rays. After seeing a small area of concern, they then sent us to Cardinal Glennon (another Hospital with an other ER) to go see a Pediatric ENT. We got all registered again to make a long story short, everyone int he hospital listened to my little guy's breathing  and they all said he sounded great. Nevertheless we were concerned parents and weren't sure what was going on.

After some discussions with the doctor on staff, he decided that we should go all Innerspace on him and check out his lungs with a little camera. They knocked him out and then went on in to find nothing wrong with him. Phew... kind of.

We were really hoping we could find something to nail down as the source of these issues. However, after doing some investigative research on out own, we found out there were walnuts in that LUNA bar he ate last week. So, we are going with a nut free diet. I feel this will not hurt his chances at a scholarship in a sport.

So, what did you do with your Father's Day?

Barney Is Crack

Anyone who has children knows about Barney addiction.

He actually carried his little chair to the middle of the living room so he could relax and watch Barney. Sure, he looks relaxed, RIGHT?!! BARNEY!!

There’s basically three stages.

1. Pre-Barney: At this point they have no idea the television even exists.
2. BARNEY!!!: It’s o.k. if Barney handles some babysitting. But, be warned, the songs will slowly drive you insane.
3. Barney…meh: Barney becomes old news once a child can start to follow a basic plot. This means cartoons are now in the realm of possibility. No more purple dinosaur!

This week, we started crossing from stage one to two. Looking for a moment of peace, I (stupidly) checked the Roku for Barney episodes. Oh, look, there’s like a gazillion. Press play. To prove Barney is like crack for kids, I’ve included this video. Mind you, this was only the third time he’d heard the intro. The first two times, he spun around in circles during the entire thing.

Notice how destructive he gets near the end with the golf clubs? We may need to put him on a strict two episode limit. 

Guessing Game

I'm about to brag. Consider that your warning.

My now 12 year old has always been amazing at guessing the number of [X]'s in a [Y]. He has, at least 3 times in his life, won guessing games at fairs or carnivals that depended on that particular skill.


Today at his schools scheduled goof-off day, he won again, by being the closest.

There were 774 skittles in this jar. His guess was 771.

There are less in there now. A guy's gotta make friends.

Treachery

My 5 year old has outdone himself this week, which is no easy task, as he's the one I tweeted this about with only a hint of sarcasm.

Earlier this week I had woken him up and he was supposed to be getting ready for school. He's a bit of a dawdler (I'm being polite) so I wasn't surprised when I found asleep on the couch.

Poor guy must have been really worn out.

I went in to scoop him up, and immediately felt like Ferris Bueller's dad.

Treachery.

Twenty minutes later the wife and I found him laughing under his bed. He wasn't afraid that he was in trouble, he couldn't comprehend that he'd be in trouble because he was just so amazed at how much "fun" we were all having.

Naturally, he ended the week with another strong showing.

Is he the Omen? No. Hopeless? Doubtful. The next Dennis the Menace? I'm not ruling it out.

P.S. As I was writing this, he was headed out back to play. He opened the door and told the dog to come outside with him. By barking. That's right, he genuinely believes that he can talk to our dog with a series of "arfs." That doesn't seem so hopeless. 

Right?

Epic Sh!t Wednesday

I won't lie, I have another blog. I run a small business on the side selling running shoes and apparel. I typically write product reviews or talk about how my leg hurt during such & such race. But Its been awhile since I've written something that wasn't about that and I think it has some staying power on this blog also.

Wednesdays are days that are kind of different in the AM due to my wife not working on this particular day of the week and 2 of my kids don't go to their respective daycare providers. Its a bit less crazy and there isn't as much of a sense of rush around the morning. So, recently I have been getting up early (5am) and heading to the gym to get a swim in and whatever else I think I need to work on... mainly my mid-section. I get a great burn at the pool and the workout following is good, but I feel like I could do something more remarkable than just swim and do sit ups.

Enter my brain and the want to start something epic for Wednesdays... So this morning I crafted up what I have dubbed Epic Sh!t Wednesday (#epicshitwednesday) and I'd like you to join me. What I see as the impetus around this hump day event is to do something extra than your normal routine. So today instead of driving to the gym and swimming. I ran the 2.5 miles there, swam, and ran the 2.5 miles back. Its not climbing-Mount-Everest or running-100-miles epic but its a little break from the mundane weekly grind.

You get the idea...

So, I'd like you to think about this when you go to do your Wednesday activities. Have 4 miles on the schedule? Stretch it out to 5 miles or do 25 pushups after ever mile. Just challenge yourself to do a little more or be a little better than your planned exertion threshold.
(end post)
Now, here's the SFA twist to it... Why don't you try to incorporate you family into some Epic Sh!t also. Put the cell phone down, get on the floor and play with your kids. Take the kids for a walk and give your wife some downtime. Teach them a life skill like fire making or carpentry. Just think about your mundane schedule when you get home from work and crank it up a notch. When you are done, tell us about or even better tell the world about it. - #epicshitwednesday

Somebody actually listened to me!

I think you all remember my old post on how family-oriented restaurants should handle families based on a non-stellar visit to a Red Robin. I'm happy to report that we've had a couple of visits there since then, and they've all been fantastic. Yesterday was especially awesome. Our server, we'll call him "James F.", because that's what was on his nametag, was super attentive but not overly in-our-faces, kept our waters full, showed us some menu shortcuts, dropped napkins by the gross on our table, and had us checked out an on our way in record time. Just an awesome, awesome experience.

The manager, (Mike, I think), was also great, swinging by the table to check on us, then going out of his way to hook the wee ones with balloons on our way out the door.

Our kids were actually not great (even by their standards), but because the service was so impeccable my wife and I had an enjoyable and largely stress-free lunch. Thanks, Red Robin!

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="396" caption="Really wanted to find a Robin giving the Buddy Jesus, but alas."][/caption]

Parenting at its best

Having four kids, people ask me all the time if I'm crazy. That answer is yes. Next they usually ask me what I like most about having kids. My answer is how different they all are. Finally they ask if this whole question gimmick is even true or if I'm just using it as a vehicle to get this post rolling. That's about the time I change the subject.

I do, however, really enjoy how different all of my kids are (before we go any further, please recognize that I find my kids more beautiful, terrible, engaging, frustrating, and interesting than yours. Sorry. Just how it goes. I'm sure you feel the same way about your kids. If you don't, that just sort of makes my point.). It doesn't make any damned sense. They have (largely) the same genetic makeup, they live in the same house, they have the same rules, they have the same influences -- they should be pretty much carbon-copies of each other. But they aren't. 

My 10 year old is my stepson, but he has been for years and he's always been as much mine as any of my other ones. He's athletic, driven, smart, polite, and generally the sort of kid every parent wishes their kid was (naturally, with him, it's all nurture). On the weird side, he won't eat chocolate and he prefers his green beans canned to frozen (I know, right?).The only reason he won't be the next Steve Nash is because he isn't Canadian (the fact that he is probably gonna end up being 5'6" doesn't help either). This kid could seriously end up an astronaut, though.

My 4 year old boy is hell on wheels. He's smart as a whip, which would be great if he could use his powers for good instead of evil. His teachers love him, so it really breaks their hearts when they have to put him in time out. He is also absolutely hilarious, and when he tells you he loves you, you know he means it. His best case scenario is probably Lex Luthor. Worst case? Sort of a less effective Lex Luthor.

My 3 year old is super, super sweet. He'll crawl up into your lap, tell you his name is "Baby Puppy Oswald" and just sit there with the sweetest little voice ever and alternate between making baby noises and puppy noises. Like a puppy, he sometimes has rage and odor issues. And he is occasionally in a dress when I pick him up from daycare. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Finally, I have an 18 month old daughter who absolutely changed my life. She looks like her 4 year old brother (just like me, which I am loathe to admit) but in a pretty way. She lights up a room, which is good, because if she is in the room, you'll know it. You'll also know if you are doing something she doesn't like, or, more often, preventing her from doing something she likes.

So, those are my kids in a nutshell. They, like ogres, have nuances and layers and all manner of things that make them amazing and flummoxing, and I love them each to death in their own special way. And I am giving them all our highest praise, a Little Bit of Italy rating.  Way to go, guys (and girl).