What Do 2nd and 3rd Grade Boys Talk About?

It starts as soon as we get in the car. I’ve only driven the boys (M-ito and his friend Austino) to school (or picked them up from school) a handful of times but it happens each time. They get in the car and start talking about poop, pee, and destruction. Here’s an example.

“Poop, poop, poop, poop,” Austino says as soon as they close the car door and buckle themselves in.

“Poop and pee, poop and pee, poop and pee,” M-ito adds in. They are both hysterical with laughter. I smile back at them through the rear view mirror.

“All right you two,” I say, “that’s enough with the poop and pee.” I know once they are in school none of this will be allowed. I figure it’s better to get it all out now so when they don’t stop right away I let it go on for  a few minutes before I veer them towards another subject.

On Friday they both were singing the Barney song but it went a little like this: “I hate you, you hate me, we’re an unhappy family, I’m gonna take a saw and cut off your head, then Barney will soon be dead.” Writing it down it doesn’t sound too good. I know, I know. But in the car, riding home after a full day of school, being good, following the rules, not using any toilet language, being gentlemen, a little letting loose can’t be bad. Can it? Variations of Barney being taken out went on for a good ten minutes with the two boys laughing and giggling at each other’s humor. Eventually I told them that enough was enough and asked them to change the subject – but they only sang louder. I should have figured that wouldn’t stop them but I’m slow at these things. Regardless, I liked to hear them laugh and didn’t want to crush their creative work directly, just channel it somewhere else. So I started word games with them. How many words can you name that rhyme with red? Then I spy with my little eye. It worked for a while, but poor Barney the purple dinosaur eventually got knocked off a few more times before we got home.

This trend towards violence and not understanding what it means disturbs me. It’s not real to the kids. But, do I want it to be real for them? Do I want them to have seen people get killed for real? Dead bodies, for real?  I’ve seen enough violence and the results of violence in my life and I’d rather not have them see any of it even when they’re older. On the other hand, they don’t take it seriously. It’s like a movie or a video game to them. And so it’s funny.

I remember a number of my friends in High School used to enjoy seeing the George Romero films like Dawn of the Dead. They laughed at the gore and violence because it was so over-the-top to them. I couldn’t watch the films. They terrified me and it all looked way too real. I couldn’t laugh at the horror of what I saw on the screen. I was not made to see horror films.

My son does not see violent films – he barely gets to see PG rated animated films and we hand-pick his films very carefully. He still hasn’t watched the third Star Wars film Revenge of the Sith because I think it’s just too violent. M-ito couldn’t sit through Beverly Hills Chihuahua last year because it was “too scary.” He get’s scared easily and we don’t want him to have nightmares. Yet when he plays Wi Lego Star Wars what is the purpose of most of the action? Well… it’s to kill all the other characters. You get points for taking their hearts. “Take out your light saber and kill them,” is commonly heard during play. It makes me cringe. What do parents do about this desensitization?

M-ito told me a story on Friday about his school. Three 8th graders had to do some public speaking at assembly last week – it’s an assignment each of them has to complete during the school year – and one of them tried to be funny in his speech. M-ito explained it to me like this.

“One boy told us he was describing his trip to Japan and said, ‘I was looking out the window of the airplane and saw three torpedoes fly out at a building and blow it up. Then I saw people jumping off the building, wait, no I was only kidding!’ That’s what he said, ‘I was only kidding!” M-ito laughed – I sensed feeling sophisticated because he got the humor. He thought it was funny – as funny as talking about poop, farts, or pee.

The first time I heard him tell this story, we were in the car on the way home from school and Austino was in the car too. They both thought it funny. I smiled but felt a little sick to my stomach – a little disturbed. I was on the 16th floor of Tower II the day the Trade Center’s came down and the story just rang differently for me. I didn’t say anything to him about it. I smiled and listened to them laugh. The second time he told the story it was to Mom-ita a few days later and I was listening while sitting next to him at dinner. I looked at Mom-ita after he’d finished and neither one of us talked for a moment. M-ito was giggling again.

We both finally looked at him and said, “You know it could be that people will think about the World Trade Center when someone tells that kind of story. They might not think it funny. People really got killed there – a lot of people.” But M-ito was working on only 8 hours of sleep and as soon as I got serious he tuned me out. Of course I said two or three sentences more and had to have Mom-ita tell me to stop, “He’s not listening to you anymore,” before I finally did find silence.

I liked it when M-ito thought Oswald was the best TV show. There was no violence. There was Big Banana day. There was a picnic in the park. There was lunch at the local diner meeting friends. Now my son is growing up and the volume is being turned up too.

When it comes down to it, if I have a choice between laughing at violence or poop and pee, I’ll take the poop and pee any day.

Birthday Boogers

I woke up this morning with my son beneath the covers next to me. His eyes were open as if he’d been waiting for me to wake up. I had  a yoga class to teach so I closed my eyes, hoping in my fantaasy world that he would go back to sleep. He leaned over, smiling, and said, “Happy birthday,” then closed his eyes and pretended to go back to sleep.

I rolled out of bed, my body achy from a cold I’ve been fighting off – that and too many late nights/early mornings this week tteaching and travelling. M-ito came out a few minutes later. “Dad-dito,” he said. “I want you to know I didn’t put any boogers on you last night. It’s your birthday so I put them on me instead.”

“Thank you,” I said. “That’s a very thoughtful gift.”

“Today,” he continued, “we’re going to do all things you like to do. So if you don’t want to watch Pokemon tonight (a bit of an evening ritual we’ve been following these days) you don’t have to. We’ll watch what you want to watch.”

“Okay,” I said.

“But… if you want to watch Pokemon, the movie we still haven’t seen, you know, that’s all right with me too.”

“Good.”

Then he hugged me as we looked at each other in the bathroom mirror. It wasn’t so long ago he couldn’t see himself without standing on the step-stool. Now he almost fits under my arm – almost. He’s a beautiful combination of Mom-ita and me.

Then we went out to the living, me to my yoga practice and preparation for the class I had to teach in an hour, and him to watch some TV, Phineas and Ferb to be exact. Usually I don’t let him watch TV while I do my practice. But it’s my birthday, so I figured if he could put the boogers on his own arm instead of mine, I could let him watch a show while I did my practice.

Favorite TV Shows at 7 and 1/4

July’s Favorite TV Shows:

• Phineas and Ferb (Aglet song and the one hit wonder Gitchie Gitchie Goo song are constantly in his head, and mine at this point – by the way I love this show too. It makes me laugh out loud many times. Perhaps it is my sense of humor or perhaps the show is really just funny. The kids are nice to each other and even the older sister Candice – whom M-ito has to look away from every time her and Jeremy are getting all lovey-dovey, has some really warm and beautiful moments.)
• Star Wars the Clone Wars (the first four episodes just came out on DVD and we’ve already watched them two times this week – I also enjoy this show. The animation is very good and original and the stories exciting and well written – though some are way too old for my son and require explaining. More a 10 and up show than a 7 and up. Don’t let the cartoon imagery fool you – it is violent.)
• Chowder (this show is new and I’m not sure what it is as I haven’t seen it yet. M-ito described it to me as a story about a short fat kid who wears purple all the time – and said, quote – it’s really cool)
• Pokemon (we both love to watch this also – M-ito because he knows all the Pokemon and wishes he could have one in this world so he could train it and it could be his best friend – and me because it’s interesting, contains strategy tactical development skills – yes I rerally wrote that – perhaps it’s better to jsut say it promotes game playing skills and neat problem solving skills – and pretty good values shown about friendship and teamwork. I have found the card game to be great – really works M-ito’s math skills and the imagery is terrific. The animation is standard on the show and stylized – reminding me of Speed Racer days, but I think the story lines are good considering every show is about a fight between Pokemon. It’s amazing what the writer’s have done with that.)

Youtube Trouble – Parental Controls to the Rescue

It’s time for me to put parental controls on the computer. M-ito has figured out how to use Google.

Yesterday he called me over to see something he’d found on the computer. It was a Star Wars Lego video on Youtube. I watched two of them before I shook myself and realized my son had found Youtube. How did he find Youtube?

“How’d you find Youtube?” I asked, speaking almost as quickly as I thought.

“Right here,” he said and showed me how he’d typed in Legos and gotten a list of sites, including Youtube videos of legos Star Wars characters in stop-motion battle with each other. It was just dawning on me what this meant – what my son had found and what he could now be exposed to when he showed me another video.

“Look at this one, Dad-dito!” he said, pointing to the screen.

I saw what looked like a scene from episode 1 on the planet Naboo – marshy with fog and a gungan riding a walking two-legged creature. I looked up at the title of the film – Star Wars Spoof Battle with Benny Hill. “Whow,” I said, taking the mouse, ” time to switch channels.”

“Why?” M-ito asked.

“This one’s adult content – you know – not for kids.”

M-ito just looked at me.

“From now on you have to have Mom-ita or me nearby when you go searching on Google or watching Youtube. Got it?”

He nodded.

Later I watched the film, of course, because I’m an adult and I’m curious. It was the battle scene from the movie sped up to manic speed while the famous Benny Hill Show music played in the background. I smiled through to the end.

Make-and-Mend Sunday

“What do I do when I’m not doing legos?” M-ito asks. He’s lying in bed, trying to keep his eyes open and failing, though giving it his all. Mom-ita is on one side and I’m on the other. We’re talking about our make-and-mend day – our Sunday. With snow outside (and me disappointed not to go sledding) we stayed in all day. M-ito had a bit of a cold so we decided to play it safe and do no-thing. This entailed the following some-things (not particularly in any order):

• Working on the “Death Star” lego model that his pop-pop bought him as the big christmas gift of the year. This is an over 3,000 piece model that is taking up a whole corner of our living room as he rummages through the pieces (and constantly asks us to help him find a piece) and the 200 page instruction manual. We figure it ought to take him a good two weeks to finish.
• Watching Animal Planet.
• Wrestling and jumping on the bed.
• Me reading him four chapters of Far-Flung Adventures: of Fergus Crane by Stewart and Riddell (a great read-to and read-along with book for a 6-year old with spectacular pen and ink drawings on most pages).
• Mom-ita reading him Max’s Words by Banks and Kulikov (a terrific picture book about the power of words and story telling).
• Watching the gerbils as I cleaned their cages (the two mommies fought so they’re now in two separate tanks of two mother-daughter pairs) and as they watched him play with his Star Wars lego characters.
• Watching the second half of Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace (we’d watched the first part earlier in the week).
• Watching the Secrets of the Furious Five (a sequel to Kung Fu Panda that we got as a boxed set over the holidays) two times along with learning how to draw Po, checking our Chinese new years and zodiac animals (M-ito is a horse, Mom-ita a tiger and yours truly… an Ox), watching different styles of kung fu based on the animals in the movie – moves modeled by kids, and finally each of us taking a quiz that determined which style of kung fu was most suited to us (M-ito the serpent, Mom-ita and me the crane). The movie, by the way was short at 45 minutes but really excellent and quite a good surprise. It is Po telling five stories, one about each of the furious five and a lesson each learned in order to become a master (courage, patience, etc…). 
• Taking a shower and had a huge meltdown (M-ito, not me this time).
• Eating breakfast and linner (lunch and dinner combined).
• Playing with his Didj (that’s for another column – ugh).

“What do I do when I’m not doing legos?” he asks again, cocking his head to the side, one eye closing. Mom-ita and I list what we remember of the day.

“Oh yeah,” he says and lays his head down on his pillow, Puffy the Puffin, his new favorite stuffed animal, close by his side.

An Aisle Seat

Each movie we go to see I think it will be different, but it’s not. It’s okay. I don’t mind a lot, but I do a little. If I’m being honest with myself -I do. On the other hand I do like to go to movies and it is the only way we get to go. I’m movie starved because I have a six-year old. I’m so starved I salivate at the thought of a good animated film. Okay, okay, I did the same thing before M-ito was born. I like animated films – always have – only now I have someone to see them with. So this is good.

Here’s the deal. We went to see Beverly Hills Chichuaua on my birthday. We watched the first half hour in our seats, with M-ito peeking through my fingers whenever he got scared – which was often. But I really shouldn’t say he got scared. It’s more like he got afraid for the characters (not wanting anything bad to happen to them), not necessarily afraid for himself. My son is very empathetic. He worries about people he comes to care about whether they’re dogs, animated characters, film characters, or real humans. We then get up, say, “excuse me,” to all the people we have to pass by to get from our seats to the aisle, then head towards the exit. We watch the rest of the movie alternating between the space in front of the exit doors and the top of the ramp leading to the seats. There’s a banister along the wall we use for support. I go down on one knee and M-ito sits on my other.

“Do you want to go back to the seats?” I ask.

M-ito shakes his head.

My knees complain but I try not to. I take a few deep breaths and settle in. I see about 80% of the film. I enjoy it. When it’s over, M-ito says he enjoyed it but maybe we should wait to see it on DVD again.

I know the sound bothers him – dolby stereo is great for adults but not for little kids. It overwhelms them and scares them. I can still remember getting the chills when dolby first came out and I watched Alien in a movie theatre in Syosset and heard the tinkling of chains behind me and to the sides just before the Alien took another victim. It scared me as an adult. I know Beverly Hills Chihuaua is not Alien but the sound works just as effectively when an angry dog growls or barks. We all jumped a little in our respective seats. I think the screen is too big – overwhelming and towering. So just to tally things up it’s the screen and the sound and the scary bits worrying about the main characters – the important ones, not the minor ones whom we don’t care about. At least that’s how M-ito explains it to me.

Back at home, we’ve watched Star Wars I, IV, V, and VI about a dozen times each - Clone Wars twice that number of times. M-ito can repeat lines of the movie verbatim.

Yesterday M-ito said, “Can we see Hotel for Dogs?” It’s a new family film that just came out. We saw a preview for it at the movies when we saw Chihuaua.

“Sure,” I say. I’m looking forward to my aisle seat.

The Force

We’re sitting at breakfast. M-ito is playing with his organic O’s but not eating them. He sneaks another piece of sliced apple.

“Eat your cereal,” I say, for the sixth time in as many minutes. It’s getting late and we have to get to school.
I pick up my glass of water and M-ito waves his hand in front of me.

“He doesn’t need to eat his cereal,” he says in a soft voice.

“Yes you do,” I reply.

He waves his hand in front of me again and says, “He doesn’t need to eat his cereal.”

I look at him now with my full attention. “What are you doing?”

He waves his hand in front of me again and says, “He’s not doing anything.”

“Yes you are,” I say. Then it hits me. He’s trying to use the force. I smile and he starts to giggle.

He waves his hand again. “No he is not.”

“You have to use the force for good,” I say.

“He is,” M-ito replies with another wave of his hand, though he’s laughing so hard along with me that it’s really hard to hear what he’s saying.

When we both stop laughing I say, “You still have to finish your cereal.”

Then he waves his hand one more time…

Awesome

We just saw The Phantom Menace together. M-ito is buzzing with questions. “Dad-dito. When Darth Maul falls in half – he just falls in half – his legs go one way and the rest of his body the other. That was just awesome!”

“Well,” I say, a bit uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation and noting for myself that we will not be watching Episodes II and III until M-ito is much older, “Darth Maul gets, um, well, he gets cut in … half by Obi Wan’s light saber.”

“Cut in half?” M-ito’s eyes widen and he moves back slightly. Then, after it all sinks in, he moves forward again. “That’s awwwwesome.”

I nod.

“By the way, Dad-dito.”

“Yeah?”

“What’s maul mean? Isn’t that, like, a shopping center? Why would they name the bad guy Darth Maul if it has to do with, you know, shopping?”

“Spelled this way it means… let me see. It means hurting someone really badly. Like when we saw the two bears fight on Be The Creature?”

M-ito nods.

“The older bear slashed the younger one. You could say, he mauled him pretty bad.”

M-ito nodded again and his face lit up. “Awwwwesome.”

Star Wars

Trying to explain to M-ito that episode IV is really the first Star Wars movie that was made has been challenging. “Which one is number one? Why didn’t that get made first? Which one should we see first?” are the questions that quickly rolled out. I decided to have him begin with episode IV as most of us did from back then because it just made sense to me. It was also the one with the least amount of epic violence in it, and the movie that is closest to my heart.

M-ito’s Lego love affair has taken him into the world of Obi-Wan Kanobi and Luke Skywalker. I think he’s too young for the futuristic western but he’s forging ahead, all six years of him. He’s built a good sized Lego Stormtrooper Walker and we’ve read five DK Star Wars level 1 and 2 reading books so he has some background on the world – the books being my idea on how to prep him for the movies.

So… over the last three nights, we sat down, M-ito half in my lap, curled up and frightened, one eye open one eye closed, a blanket covering us both in case we needed to hide from the movie’s images – and watched it from beginning to end. The only scene I skipped for him (and didn’t tell him) was the scene when Luke’s aunt and uncle are fried and their skeletons are shown toasting in front of their house. Powerful scene – but not for M-ito. It was bad enough that Obi-Wan disappears when Darth Vader cuts him in half. And that the ground is littered with dead Jawas. And that at least twelve rebel fighters get destroyed attacking the deathstar. And did I mention a whole planet? And the Death star. I’d better stop now. I can’t take the death toll. 

Let me be clear. I love this movie. I still remember seeing it when was a teenager, first row and in awe of the dream I was watching appear across the screen. But when your son is 6 and he wants to watch the same movie because all of his boy friends have seen it – it’s a whole ‘nother story. I guess I buckled to pressure. 

What I did was explain every plot point to M-ito before it happened. I told him what would happen to Obi-Wan – with the movie on pause. I told him what would happen at the end – right before the attack on the death star – with the movie on pause. And as long as he was prepared for the next plot point – movie on pause – he was okay. As we lay in bed afterwards, right before singing started, he told me that was the only way he could watch the film.

“It was too scary not to know,” he said.

I told him I wasn’t happy about all the violence in the movie and all the creatures, human and not human, that were killed.

“But not the important ones,” he told me. “As long as the important ones, like Han and Luke and Princess Leia, were okay it was all right.” I’m not sure if this is good or bad. It’s how I view violence on TV and in film also. It’s okay as long as it happens to a character that I don’t care about. How smart is my son?

“Do you think you’ll have nightmares tonight?” I asked.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. He went to bed that night in my arms, holding my hand next to his cheek, a big Star Wars smile on his face while I sang him Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

My father introduced me to The Mark of Zorro, The Seahawks, The Adventures of Don Juan, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Gunga Din, and Beau Geste. Errol Flynn was my hero. He was my father’s hero also. I watched each film with my father at my side – waiting for the next sword fight or battle scene – yawning my way through the love scenes. When we get the chance – very rare these days – we still watch Jackie Chan films or martial arts epics together – modern adventure stories. He gave me the Pirates of the Caribbean for a gift two christmas’ back.

I have mixed feelings about the violence in Star Wars. But I am so glad M-ito and I saw the film together.

Move Over Noggin

It happened sometime over the last four months. I couldn’t put my finger on the exact date. But today I could deny it no longer. It became official. Now that my son can officially turn the TV on and off without any help, and find his own channels – all this comes with graduating kindergarten – his go-to channel has become Animal Planet. I remember when it was Oswald, and Little Einsteins, and Wonder Pets, and Dora, and Diego. Everything was on Noggin, and Noggin was king. Now it’s shows like, It’s Me or the Dog, Meerkat Manor, Corwin’s Quest, and the Crocodile Hunter. Sigh, he’s growing up.

Of course this also means he’s watching commercials and quoting lines from the advertisement for Activia. Noggin had no commercials. Noggin is genius. Noggin is good. Commercials are capitalism in my living room. M-ito knows all about weight loss and other products I’d rather that he didn’t know about, but with Animal Planet comes the rest of the grown up world and a barrage of products that he doesn’t need. Still he soaks these commercials up and is fascinated by them.

Yesterday Mom-ita called him in for dinner and he said, “Wait, there’s a commercial on. I’ll come in when it’s over.”

Crikey.