bentangle

The bumps and potholes in the road of parenthood are many and often unexpected.  And when things are suddenly moving smoothly in the right direction, derailment should not be surprising when it comes.  The trouble is that it is a constant struggle to exert order onto something that is innately chaotic.

Bedtime routines with my children have never been easy.  My daughter has been difficult in this area since birth.  She was a colicky baby, she slept lightly when she did settle so we used nose-makers with her until she was 3, and until she was 2 1/2, putting her to bed usually took at least 45 minutes to an hour (this is not counting prep time - this is sitting in the room waiting for her to settle down).  If the one of us that was in there with her left before she was asleep, she would cry and would take twice as long to settle as she assumed we would try to leave again.  When my son was born, she started to get better and the whining got replaced with bargaining (”can I have one more story?”, “can I have a drink of water?”, etc.).  She still bargains a bit, but has learned what we will and won’t allow so it has gotten easier.

My son is now 2 and he has never been as difficult.  He would typically settle quickly and without much fuss and for a past few months it has literally been as simple as putting him down with his blankie, turning off the light and leaving the room.  That was until we went away for a week.

It should come as no surprise that he was harder to settle down in a strange environment, nor that it was twice as hard to get both kids to settle in the same room.  But in the weeks since we’ve been back, he hasn’t let go of the skittishness he had when we were away.  So we are now stuck in the same routine with him that we had with our daughter at this age (one we had thought we managed to skirt past).

So as I sit here writing, my wife is patiently waiting for him to fall asleep so that she can sneak out of his room (we take turns).  Hopefully in the weeks to come this will taper off and we can restore order to things, but only time will tell.

My family rocks.

With new episodes of most of the shows I watch on hiatus seemingly until Spring, I’ve been dwindling my backlog of DVR fare as of late.  But luckily just before our trip south, I noticed that BBC America was rerunning the latest season of Doctor Who - a show I have not followed nearly as closely as I’d like to.  So when I got home I had a nice array of episodes to watch - some I had already half-scene, but many I missed.

I started watching some over the weekend with my daughter (my wife and son were napping and there was nothing on worth watching).  She is 5 and a little young for some of the content and concepts, but she seemed to enjoy watching it as she played with her toys nearby.  My wife has also been mostly uninitiated to this show, but she ended up watching part of an episode with me later Saturday evening as well.

Then comes Sunday - it had been a restless night with my son and by his nap-time, I felt like I could use one as well.  So I took one.  Later that afternoon, I awake and come downstairs to find my kids watching a Doctor Who marathon while my wife was doing some work on her laptop.  So in the matter of a weekend I seem to have gotten both my wife and my daughter into one of the best sci-fi genre shows of all time.  I already knew that they rocked, but this just takes their geek-sheik status up a notch.

I must proselytize about a certain kids’ show - Phineas & Ferb.  As a parent of a pre-schooler and a toddler and as an owner of a television (and avid enthusiast), I find myself spending a decent amount of time watching shows with my children.  Of course I try to limit the quantity and so we aim for quality of entertainment in what we watch.  As a conscientious parent, I have to be aware of what they watch - I wouldn’t want my kids getting the wrong ideas or messages from television (like that sponges are really dish sponge-shaped and live in pineapples).  The downside of this process is the mind-numbing effect that some of these shows have on adults (I won’t name names, but one such show rhymes with Bora the Bexplorer).  So when a show comes along that is entertaining for all ages without crossing any questionable lines, it is like panning for gold and finding a full bar.

Phineas & Ferb is such a show.  This show is about two step-brothers on summer vacation who do their best to make every day an adventure.  Such adventures include building a roller coaster, fixing an incomplete time machine, and chiseling their sister’s face into Mount Rushmore.  They are both very positive and creative characters and their are countered by their older sister, Candace, who is constantly trying to get them busted in the act by their mother.  Each episode also includes an interesting side plot involving the brothers’ pet platypus named Perry who happens to be a secret agent (this side plot is almost always initiated with Phineas stating “Hey, where’s Perry?” and closed with him saying “There you are Perry.” later in the episode).  Perry’s nemesis is an evil scientist named Dr. Doofenshmirtz who is constantly building ridiculous inventions (e.g., the Age Accelerator-inator) which he plans to use to rectify minor, personal annoyances.  Inevitably his plots are snuffed by Perry’s use of martial arts and spy gadgets of his own (and a decent amount of ingenuity) and often this sequence of events conveniently leads to whatever Phineas & Ferb had been working on being cleaned up just before Candace can get their mother to see what they are doing.

There are several elements that make this a fun show for everyone.  On the surface, it is a light-hearted show with clever jokes that can be appreciated on many levels.  Deeper down, there are positive messages within the show - messages of family unity even in an unconventional family (the similarly-aged brothers are of different mothers, yet are very close to each other and the rest of their family), and messages of confidence and camaraderie.  Some of the friends of Phineas and Ferb are a self-confident girl named Isabella (who has a secret crush on Phineas), a bully named Buford (who despite his bully status, is typically good-natured toward everyone) and a timid Hindu boy named Baljeet (often the brunt of Buford’s bullying, though when not being bullied the 2 seem to be close friends).  The relationships between these friends show a good example to kids of healthy social behaviors and much of their actions encourage friendliness and sharing and discourage exclusion and inequality.

I will admit, that I liked this show before my daughter committed to it, but now she loves it and will watch some episodes of it over and over again.  My kids with also pretend to be characters from the show (often if they include me, I have to be Dr. Doofenshmirtz - which is fun because he has some amusing catch-phrases).  I’ve managed to get a number of colleagues wth kids hooked on the show as well and I encourage anyone out there with kids to watch.  Hell - even without kids it is a fun show.  Don’t resist it - you know you want to be converted too.