Julian has been crying since he turned two. We counted down to his birthday, to the minute and when he woke up, he started crying and it feels like he hasn't stopped.  That is, with the exception of his time with Yo Gabba Gabba. It's just completely unfair. Now, we are in the process of weaning him from the tele. He is now going to Gabba Gabba anonymous, but I'm not quite sure it's reaching him. It's hard to have twelve steps when you can only count to seven before starting over again. Just this morning, I found the little monster hungrily nursing off of the empty cable outlet, in hopes that he hadn't scraped all of the Gabba resin off of it. He got a little shock, then I took his cute little collar off of him and told him that he should go out and play in the joys of the season. Down here, we call it "Still Summer".
We went outside to average the tallies, (Mother nature-1, me-0) and I looked over at the little beast and his puppy playing and said 'Don't bite!'. Jules looked offended, but took the dogs ear out of his mouth anyway, all the while singing, "please, don't bite your friends, please don't bite your friends." One of his favorite Gabba-isms.
There are quite a few Gabba-isms that get used in the household, and still Julian just hasn't mastered the proper usage. I enjoy his attempts nonetheless. Magnolia came home from school and was forced to join us in a little outdoors time when I heard a scream coming from her whirling vortex of drama. "Mom! There's something that looks like dog poop over here!" Just for good measure, she screamed it four times to achieve maximum uptake. Pulling my bloody forearms out of the blackberry bush that was obviously winning I shouted over, "yeah, but does it taste like dog poop?" hoping that I had deftly averted a cleanup job in the middle of my own personal melee with the foliage.
"Mom, that is so gross, I'm not gonna try it." Shouted back the sixteen year old trapped within my seven year old daughter.
About that time Julian, sweetly walked over to Magnolia, rested his little hand on her shoulder and in 100% pure Gabba glory assured her, "Try it, you'll like it!" Yet another goofy song  with a hip-hop beat from quite possibly the coolest show for diaper douser's ever.
I'm only as cool as the Gabba. I beat box with Biz, doodle pictures with Mark Mothersbaugh (of Devo fame), count to six with Cornelius a hard rocking band from Japan, and get to do the dancey dance with Elijah Wood. This show is for the product of all of those Ravers and heads that missed their BC pill one too many times. And I swear I have seen the host of the show, DJ Lance Rock, after he had taken one too many pills at a Bumbershoot concert. There's just something about his dancey dance....
In all honesty, this show was made for us. All of the clothes those hip little dancey kids are wearing, we wore! All of the trippy little kids shown riding 'My  Little Ponies' through an 'Atari' level, they are everything that we wished we could be twenty- I mean fifteen, or rather twelve years ago. All of the crazy banana suited furry freaks are just a page out of 'Mister Roger's land of Make Believe'. I find myself living vicariously through the awesome voyage my son takes every day at 10:30 AM.
It's hard to deprive your children of a show with so much phunky phresh culture, but in the long run, who can handle all of that cool? If Jules was made cool at such an early age, what would happen to him when he turned twelve? Would he avoid being awkward, just because of the hippest show ever? Would he be that kid that the teacher is uncontrollably attracted to? Would he some how manage to impregnate his teacher with his Gabba-esque smooth talk. It brings a whole new meaning to "try it, you'll like it!"
NO! I will not be a granny to a prepubescent boy and his girlfriend who went to see "Wayne's World" at the movie theater like I did. Upon this revelation, I'm finding it harder to appreciate all of the joys of Gabba, and all of it's digital orbing, knowing the impending doom that will occur from just being, 'too cool'.
So now we tantrum. I lie on the floor right next to the little adorable spawn of something not quite human, wishing we could just go back and avoid all of the teary, drippy, gooey heartache. And it is heartache, but only for a little while. Where's that shock collar....

 

 

 

 

 

Dorinda Fox, I'm following your wonderful example.

This is a really funny piece by Sheldon the Wonderhorse  about M. Night Shaymalan's movie 'The Happening'

http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=58777

 

Oh, and here is another great one by Melinda about old ladies in leather pants. So funny

http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=60073