Our "Almost" Readers

This week, Late Blooming Dad had two amazing moments with the kids.  The first one was when he went to pick up the kids from school because I couldn't, and happened upon the Girl's kindergarten teacher sitting alone with her, reading a book with her.  The teacher motioned dad to wait a few moments till they finished; then she excitedly gushed, "She's so close!"  Yes, the girl is about to become a reader.  And this excitement came from the school's most veteran teacher, who has certainly seen this happen hundreds of times.  Late Blooming Dad was thrilled.

The second moment came with the Boy. 

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Alice Is Still Wonderful

As a kid growing up on an enchanted isle called Manhattan, I was taken many times to visit the statue of Alice In Wonderland in Central Park, AKA the Margarita Delacorte Memorial.  Almost from the time I was aware of the book, and possibly before I'd even seen the animated Disney cartoon version, I loved climbing on that statue.  And for those who don't know of it, yes, you read that last sentence right:  Alice is a statue you can climb on.  In fact, you're supposed to, especially if you're a kid.

Flash forward to this year, when my five-year-olds starting seeing billboards for the Tim Burton movie of ALICE IN WONDERLAND.  They were very curious and asked about each of the characters.   I was able to get them to listen to at least a few pages of the book read aloud, and even purchased the Disney cartoon version for them, which they watched on a visit to their grandparents, enrapt.  My daughter is rehearsing a dance number to be performed as part of her ballet school's production of ALICE this June.  Given this confluence of events, a trip to New York, and the gorgeous weather on Easter Sunday, I knew it was time for me to revisit Alice.

She resides, as ever, atop a mushroom, surrounded by a memorable, familiar cast:  her cat Dinah at her feet, the White Rabbit nearby clutching his pocket watch, the Mad Hatter conversing beside her, the doormouse perched to one side on a smaller mushroom, and the Chesire Cat observing the scene from a tree branch.  If you look closely, you can also find other Wonderland denizens, e.g. that inscrutable caterpillar.  The whole ensemble can be found just north of the conservatory, which some of us know as the miniature boat basin, located at seventy-fourth street and Fifth Avenue, on the East side of the park.  (The conservatory is famous for a scene in another children's book, STUART LITTLE.)

On the particular Easter Sunday when we visited, the weather was about as glorious as it gets on a spring day in NY -- bright blue, nearly cloudless, and warm but not yet in the full heat of summer.  And though many a kid and tween and even teen clambered over the statue, it wasn't so crowded that the kids couldn't gain purchase several times and occupy some choice spots.  For Thing 1, that meant sitting atop the doormouse; for Thing 2, that meant sitting in Alice's lap and holding Dinah's paws.

Photos were snapped, and there was much scrambling hither and thither in and around Alice, and on the statue's many plants and creatures.  (I say hither and thither because, well, those words just come to mind when one is thinking about Alice.)  Grandma posed with Thing 1 and the Mad Hatter, and Thing 2 never seemed to tire of smiling for another snap while occupying Alice's lap.

I couldn't help but feel a bit wistful, missing my own New York childhood; since moving all the way across the country in what seems a lifetime ago, pre-kids, pre-marriage, post-college, I've created my own West Coast life, but I can't help but feel, after all this time, it's still a little inadequate.  Sure, I can get my kids to Disneyland in an hour from where I live.  But somehow, the lure of the simpler pleasure of an attraction like that Alice statue remains more powerful, more compelling. 

The best art invites you to interact with it, and by that standard, the Alice statue more than succeeds.  As I perched atop it, alongside Alice, I thought back to a childhood in which the big event of the day was climbing all over that statue, not passively seeing a movie version of the Alice story in 3-D.  I know I'm waxing nostalgic about childhood, and that's such a cliche thing to do.  But there's something genuine at the heart of most cliches.  And for me, watching my kids enjoy the Alice statue was a lovely link between past and present -- something about which it's worth getting sentimental.

A Two-Hump Sopwith Camel

So the other day we're reading what's become a classic around this house, EVERYONE POOPS. If you're not familiar with this popular preschool picture book (yes, there are pictures of poop in it -- lots), it's basically a book that shows drawings of different animals and people pooping. It explains matter-of-factly that some stop to poop, some do it on the run, some do it in the water, and some do it in a special place (the potty), etc. One page shows a one-hump camel making a one-hump poop; another shows a two-hump camel making a two-hump poop.

I know, by now you are pooped with the poop references. So I'll get to the point.

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The Not So Terrible Twos: A Look Back

Because I only started blogging a little late into my later-in-life momhood -- when the kids turned three -- I don't have as much of a grip on what, exactly, happened that second year of parenthood. But I'm jogging my memory today because that blur of a year shouldn't go by thoroughly unrecorded. After all, getting through a year of later-in-life parenthood is something of an accomplishment, especially so when parenting twin toddlers ... or so I rationalize. I have to give myself a pat on the back for getting through it, even though people do it all the time, because one thing I do recall is feeling distinctly like I wasn't going to make it.

It wasn't because the twos were terrible. They were just ... well, wearing. They were also wondrous and delightful, in some ways far more rewarding than the ones, which were all about mom and dad putting one foot in front of the other, no matter how sleep-deprived. Most of all, they were about changes, big and small, and always, always coming, so that just when you thought you kinda had this parenting thing down, something would come to send you right back into learning on the job. To steal an iconic I LOVE LUCY image, I spent much of Year 2 feeling like the candies were coming down the conveyor belt faster than I could box them.

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The Great Binky Withdrawal

The dentist said they could go till age four, but that birthday is fast approaching.

So Late Blooming Mom figured Thanksgiving was as good a time as any to enact The Great Binky Withdrawal.

Forces were marshalled in advance, most notably the book THE BINKY BA BA FAIRY. It was dutifully read aloud -- and re-read aloud -- many times before the appointed day when the Binky Box was decorated and filled with every last Binky in the house.

The book said the Binky Ba Ba Fairy would come in the night, after the children went to sleep. The Fairy would take their binkies in the box, placed outside their bedroom door, and give them to new babies, babies who needed the binkies. She would replace the binkies with Big Kid Presents.

Thing 1 and Thing 2 bought into the Binky Ba Ba Fairy with a vengeance. They've never been told much about Santa Claus, and they haven't lost any teeth yet, so the Tooth Fairy hasn't made a visit. But they bought the Binky Ba Ba Fairy with the unquestioning wonder and faith in magic that only very small children can muster. They insisted on bringing the decorated binky box all the way to our front door and placing it outside.

That night, they tossed and turned, full of questions. When will she come? Why don't we see her? What color are her wings? Why isn't she here yet? How will she get inside? Which babies will get the binkies? What are the names of the babies?

Thing 1 missed her binky badly, and even rejected the comfort of the little duckies she normally sleeps with; to her, they suddenly seemed to belong to the baby she used to be, not the big kid she was about to become.

Thing 2 normally tosses and turns before getting down to sleep, but that night, his restlessness seemed endless.

Late Blooming Mom wound up in their room past 11 p.m, reading by flashlight.

Then it was time to prepare the Big Kid Presents, and remove the binky box from the front door and place it in an "undisclosed location" where the kids won't find it.

The next morning, it must've been six-thirty when I heard the exclamations. Thing 1 had found the presents. He awakened Thing 2 excitedly. Daddy was soon drafted to help them open the gifts: a Lite Brite for her, a Lego Mac truck and Lightning McQueen from the movie CARS. The morning was spent happily playing with the toys, with not a thought given to the binkies.

All was well.

Until later in the day, when nap time arrived ... and there were no binkies.
Cue ominous music here. To be continued ...

The Insidious Reach Of The Brand

This morning I took the kids to Preschooler Story Time at one of my local libraries. After the story was read, BINGO was sung, and we colored some hand-outs with crayons, it was time for me to let the kids find some books so I could read to them.

The good news is that they grabbed a lot of books and sat there with great interest while I read, pointing and asking questions, thoroughly engaged.

The bad news is that more than half the books they selected and asked me to read for them were basically non-books: in book form, they were advertisements for Disney's CARS and ALADDIN, and the TV cartoons SPOT, CLIFFORD, and MISS SPIDER'S SUNNYPATCH FRIENDS, which began as books, but which my kids didn't get into until they saw the characters on TV. The books were not particularly creative, smart or fun. The few books we read that had no movie or TV tie-ins were a heckuva lot better, though not exactly the classic children's books I remember from my own childhood. If I'd had more time at the library to browse, it would've been all about MAKE WAY FOR DUCKLINGS and other picture books I remember fondly.

Eventually the kids got ancy to leave; they'd already seen the library-adjacent playground by the parking lot, and needed to get their playground groove on. That was just fine: I've learned well how you've gotta let the kids get their energy out in the morning so they'll be primed for lunch, then tired enough to nap.

But I couldn't help feeling I'd done the kids a disservice introducing them to so many branded characters already. I'm not saying I don't adore CURIOUS GEORGE in movie and TV form (it IS on PBS, and technically educational), but I'm glad that's translated into the kids wanting me to read them actual CURIOUS GEORGE books, some of which I do remember from childhood. I've used TV out of desperation when I needed to shower, make dinner, or just rest for a bit, and I've also watched it with the kids because there are shows and DVDs for kids I genuinely enjoy and want to share with them. I've also read to them since before they "got" what a book was, and spend at least some time reading to them everyday. I just wish the books weren't so tied in to making my kids want to buy merchandise.

My daughter's awareness of the whole Princess phenomena is uncanny. I plead guilty to having taken her to the Disney store in the local mall a bunch of times to kill time and keep her amused, though I really think peers in preschool somehow exposed her to the names of every single Princess in the Disney canon before I'd even gotten her a single DVD featuring a princess. (In fact we only own one such DVD, "THE LITTLE MERMAID," and Thing 2 has watched it once through just one time, refusing to view it again because of the brief presence of a scary shark). Somehow she's gotten Princess-bonkers anway, and has a toy tiara, clothes with princesses on them, the plastic play slippers festooned with Ariel's visage. I guess now that modern Disney heroines aren't shrinking violets, make bold choices, and are partners in their own rescues, it's not so bad for girls to be into princesses. But the whole thing still feels too pre-Feminist creepy for me. (I don't think I was EVER in a princess phase, even when I was cast as one in a James Thurber play at summer camp. I don't even remember identifying with a female character until well into fifth or sixth grade, when I became aware of Mary Richards on THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW and wanted to fling my hat into the air (even though I didn't own one) and make it after all.)

For my son, it's all about cars from the Disney/Pixar movie CARS. He's got a dozen toy cars from the movie, or maybe more at this point (I've lost count). He has CARS stickers, books, shirts, socks, pants and light-up sneakers. He wants to be LIGHTNING MCQUEEN for Halloween, AND when he grows up (even though Lightning McQueen is a car, not a person). Now as movies go, CARS is a pretty good one -- even exposing my kids to the voice of the late, great actor/humanitarian Paul Newman (who plays DOC HUDSON) and the dulcet tones of singer/songwriter James Taylor (who sings a Randy Newman-penned song in the movie). It teaches the value of having friends and helping them when they need help. It has no scary, nightmare-inducing villain (for a movie with DISNEY in the credits, that's huge). And it's pleasant and fun. But the merchandizing tie-ins are, well, endless. I challenge anyone to show up at any preschool in America and find one where the boys aren't clad in at least some CARS wear.

I know it's my fault for giving in to all this and buying the crap. But the thing is, when you don't want a fight in the morning about getting the kids to get dressed, having character-themed clothes means those clothes go on -- and fast. Sometimes the kids seek them out and dress themselves before I even have to ask. The other thing is, Disney, thanks to China, makes the stuff cheap. Now we've probably spent enough on it all, cumulatively, that it isn't really cheap; but only now do I realize the insidious way Disney has lured me into turning my kids into customers.

I'm probably not gonna stop buying the crap anytime soon either; the kids genuinely love it. And what the hell, why shouldn't the kids be reading a book called WINNE THE POOH AND THE HANUKAH DREIDEL, even if I know damn well Christopher Robin and his friends are good English Protestants by origin (somewhere in heaven, A.A. Milne is saying "Oy!"). But what I AM going to do, at least when it comes to reading time, and to buying books or reading them at the library, is try to steer them, as much as I can, to stuff that ISN'T a TV show or a movie... stuff they can imagine coming to life themselves without a team of animators to do it for them. I've probably done a fair amount of this already, but now that I'm more aware, I'm going to try to do it more and more often.

The library had a corner window on which words were etched: sentences lifted from children's books, sentences like, "Let the wild Rumpus start!" and phrases like "Some pig!" Each one brought back a vivid memory for me, and the images that came to mind weren't taken from movies or TV shows. I hope I can share those memories with my kids by turning them on to books for books' sake -- so what matters is the story, not the wearable/watchable stuff it inspired.