Category: …And Little E Makes 3

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...And Little E Makes 3 Home Base

Toy Opening Story

Gizmo ClausChristmas Eve was pretty jam-packed here at ye olde Greenhaus. As expected, my wife had to work all day, but this didn’t mean the boys were sitting around the house all day. After eating (and watching The Polar Express), it was time to make one last pre-Christmas run to the PO box, and then swing by the store to pick up a few necessities that couldn’t wait for the stores to open up again on Monday or Tuesday, namely kitty litter. As it turned out, we also had to visit the tire center at Wal-Mart because I had a tire that was almost completely flat when we set foot outside the house this morning. Sheesh. Nothing like relaxing on Christmas Eve, is there? And trust me, this was nothing like relaxing on Christmas Eve. … Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 ToyBox

The Mystery Box

Previously, on Scribblings From The Public Restroom Stalls Of The Gods… I revealed that Little E is gettin’ a bunch of cool stuff for Christmas. He’s old enough for his first “action figure Christmas,” which, in my childhood, was just the best thing ever. I don’t have nearly the budget (or the helpful economy) that my folks had when I was growing up, but by golly, this year’s toy haul is gonna be pretty close to an “extravaganza” rating thanks to some judicious shopping.

There’s just one hitch: a bunch of Super Mario figures I got him were already opened. So how do I wrap those? … Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 ToyBox

The droid he’s looking for

Wall-ETo talk about what Little E is getting for Christmas, one has to realize that in some respects, the boy lives in a little bit of a time warp. He likes old cartoons (to give but one example: he’s a sucker for the animated segments of the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, which I dug out simply because he’s so crazy about the games… he’s not quite so crazy about the Captain Lou live-action segments.) This time warp is a bit of a bubble that he’s entered simply by spending a lot of time in my room with me. We play Super Mario and Pac-Man on the computer and on the Wii. He watches Pixar movies of an older vintage than Cars 2 (his favorites: Wall-E and Toy Story 2).

Of course, toys tied to a specific thing like a movie or a game have a very specific shelf life: as soon as the thing’s off the market and no longer making money for the studio, it’s very rare for the merchandise to stick around. Not everything has the seemingly eternal staying power of Star Wars. And this… is what drove me to eBay to do some Christmas shopping this year.

In my previous blog entry, while ruminating about not wanting to saddle someone else’s kid with toys built around a super-violent story, I also mentioned being keenly aware of the risk of saddling someone else’s kid with something completely lame. This Christmas list for Little E was derived from listening to him talk about what he’d like to get over the past year. Everything here is something he’s said he wants. Other family members will get him clothes and books and stuff, and believe me, I’m grateful for that. That leaves me open to get the cool stuff for him. Everything was paid for by me eBaying off some of my own stuff to raise funds.

Here’s the cool stuff. … Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 ToyBox

The droids you’re looking for

DroidsSo Little E brought home a note from his day care a couple of weeks ago, announcing the annual Christmas party. All boys were supposed to bring a boys’ gift, girls were to bring girls’ gifts, and everything was supposed to stay under $10 – the usual drill, really.

What’s amazing is how much I agonized over what to get. Pardon me while I be a big hippie for a few minutes here. … Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Home Base

A written record of interactions with human beings

WTF?Two conversations I had with humans today, with some context.

In response to my mentioning, during a phone interview for a job at a business that has “Fayetteville” in its name but has relocated to Bentonville, that my previous job ended when I wouldn’t move to Rogers on my own dime: “Bentonville is pretty much the capitol of the state now. If you’re not willing to move or work up here, you might as well get in the soup line.” (My response was to politely suggest that we terminate the interview since there was an obvious misunderstanding about the location of the business; his response was to hang up on me. I’m going to assume that this will be another employer who won’t be gracing me with a letter or a phone call telling me I didn’t get the job.)

In response to me telling him we needed to go to the grocery store, and what we were going to get there, when I picked him up today: “HEY EVERYBODY! MY DADDY AND I HAVE TO GO TO THE STORE! WE ARE OUT OF APPLES AND GREEN BEANS! OH! MY! GOSH! WE HAVE TO GO!” (For a minute I thought he was going to raise a stampede of preschoolers to cram into my car to go Occupy The Grocery Store.)

These were my major interactions with humans today. I prefer the small ones to the big ones. If I interact with any more humans, I’ll let you know how it went, and how much ranch dressing they needed before they were palatable.… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3

How to make it look like your head was clumsily photoshopped onto someone else’s body: lesson #1

Lesson #1: nod really fast while the picture’s being taken.

Nod nod nod nod nod nod

Thanks for that, buddy. Tune in next time for more valuable lessons from Little E on how to avoid having your picture taken.… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Music

Little E vs. the original motion picture soundtrack

Children challenge you in ways you hadn’t imagined, by forcing you to re-examine and explain/justify stuff you hold to be somewhat self-evident. Case in point:

Little E’s favorite movie right now (and mine too, if I’m to be honest) is WALL-E. He likes cute robots doing stuff without a lot of WALL-Edialogue required to understand it. I think it’s actually a cracking good little high-concept science fiction piece that got snuck in the back door in the packaging of a kids’ movie (nicely done, Pixar!). And the soundtrack by Thomas Newman is just this side of brilliant – with the long, dialogue-free stretches of the first half of the movie, Newman has the responsibility of cluing the audience in on the implications of what’s going on.

During the scene where WALL-E is chasing a laser dot (part of the landing sensors of what he doesn’t realize is an approaching spacecraft), the music really kicks in, and at one point, out of the blue, on what had to be WALL-E viewing #39 at the very least, Little E said “Dad, why is that music doing that?”

That brought me up short. I was enjoying the music tremendously, but my enjoyment of music is very much an instinctual, gut-feeling sort of thing. And now I had to explain it. Uh…?

I quickly turned it around into a question. “How does the music make you feel?” (At about this point, WALL-E was burying himself to protect himself from the heat of the ship’s engines.)

“Scared,” he said.

“I bet WALL-E’s pretty scared right now too,” I told him.

He thought about it a moment. The movie continued and the music quieted down, and took a different tone as EVE started exploring the planet. “What is WALL-E feeling right now?” he asked.

I responded, “Well, what’s the music telling you?”

“I don’t know,” Little E said.

“Well, WALL-E doesn’t know anything about EVE yet either,” I said.

He either started to grok what I was saying, or he was tired of me answering his questions with further questions. It’s a very Zen teaching method, but I can also see where it’s an exasperating one at times. (I think that’s why I’m not a teacher.)

They're flying on instruments!I really hope that it was the former, because the movie score (and its frequently budget-addled nephew, the television score) is an art form I love dearly, and I’d love to share my knowledge (and sheesh, my library) with him. He’s showing signs that he may just be “getting” music on the same gut-feeling level as his old man, who couldn’t sight-read sheet music to save his life or sing well enough for his supper. If this is an Area Of Interest, maybe some more intensive edumacation – more than what I’ve ever gotten – is something he’d be up for.

One thing that I think my mom got absolutely right with her parenting method was that she never, ever tried to steer me toward being a doctor, a lawyer, or anything like that. She waited for these Areas Of Interest to make themselves known and would kick some doors open to fuel those interests and see if there was Something There. That, too, is a bit unorthodox, but it’s something I intend to turn into a family tradition.

In the meantime, thanks to WALL-E, my son can hum “Also Sprach Zarathustra” from memory (I’ve played him the full version of the movement quoted briefly in the movie) and knows the words to that Peter Gabriel song in the end credits. Not a bad start.… Read more