Baby Daddy 46: Word Party

It never occurred to me, but I have endless fodder for my Baby Daddy series. Recently, my son has started watching Word Party on Netflix. For those that don't know, it is a show about four baby animals, and they learn and interact and the "big kids" (our son) helps them to learn and do shit.

Now I have learned several things about these shows. The first is that it is remarkably easy for us to regress to being kids. I mean, I am watching the show, and they have a section where the babies are learning about shapes. And they ask, "What is that shape?" and I find myself yelling at the screen "TRIANGLE! It's a motherfucking TRIANGLE!". As it they can hear me, and they will learn faster, because I decided to yell.

I have also learned how easy it is for those shows to get stuck in parents' heads. My wife started the kiddo on that show because she needed to get some work done, it was educational, and he started dancing along with the babies in the show. Here's the thing. This is an animated show, with animal babies, that have advanced choreography. As I am writing this, I can visualize their choreography and it is creeping me the fuck out. They cannot struggle that much to walk, and then suddenly bust out into a chorus line.

Also, the songs are painfully easy to get stuck in your head. "We're going to the potty. We listen to our body...." I heard that song exactly one time. Technically only 50% of that one time. And guess what? I still know to listen to my body and go to the potty. There's another song that goes,

"Please, please, please,

 Please, please, please,

 Please, please, please,

 Won't you please say,

 Yes, Yes, Yes."

I have a terrible combination of rhyming skill and maturity. I keep expecting them to say, "Please, please, please, Won't you get on your knees, knees, knees." Now when I first heard the song, an dmy head automatically made the substitution, I thought, "Damn, that's vulgar." Then I started thinking of Thanos, from Avengers: Infinity War, and thought, "Maybe they are teaching global domination?" As it turns out, no. They are asking to go outside. And the "big kids" always fucking say yes. "Oh, you want to go play in a tornado? Sure, go for it. Have fun!"

(nobody in their right fucking mind would say, "Oh, it's bedtime and you want to stay up? Sure!")

The final part of the show that I am having issues with is the characters, themselves. There is a kangaroo that is clearly the charismatic leader. They have an elephant that is a big ol' baby and afraid of everything. They have a cheetah, who I think will eventually grow up to sleep with the kangaroo. And they have fucking Lulu - a bitch panda. And for everyone who's thinking, "wow, 'bitch' is a strong word", no! You are wrong! It is accurate! My wife was even the one to mention it!

Why do we hate Lulu? Because she is selfish and needy. She wants to play on the train, while others are napping? She wakes them all up. She wants a toy? She cries until they give her a toy. The elephant lost his apple, and Lulu kept trying to help him find it. Lulu didn't even know what an apple looks like! How the shit do you search for something, when you don't know what the fuck it is?! As it turns out, she fucking stole the apple and gave it to her toy giraffe! Lulu "made friends" with a butterfly, and then freaked the fuck out when it flew away. The entire episode is about her getting binoculars and stalking this butterfly to find it.

I also am trying to figure out if Lulu is racist. She speaks in incomplete sentences, like you would expect from a younger baby. At the same time, the sentence structure is very similar to what I have experienced from ESL students - particularly those from Asia. That's right, I am trying to figure out if the baby panda is a very young baby, or a racist depiction of an Asian baby.

Circling back around, my comments about the Cheetah are well founded. She's the only predator in the show, and she reminds me of Daphne from Scooby Doo. If the kangaroo is Fred, then the cheetah and the kangaroo are going to have hybrid babies in 18 years.

Moral of the Story: Word Party is a great show for kids, and reveals a lot about the parents that watch it. Oh, and Lulu needs to stop being so goddamned selfish.

Baby Daddy 45: Bye Felicia

YEEEESSSS!!!!! I have been waiting for SO LONG to get another Baby Daddy story. I know what you may be thinking, "Where has this motherfucker gone? Has he up and left his family?" The answer is no. Quite the opposite, in fact; I have been focusing more on them.

But with all of this, the reality is that home life has settled down. The biggest bit of news was that my son started talking. We don't know what the fuck he is saying, but he won't stop telling us. We think he may be speaking Chinese? That would make more sense than English, with how much interaction he spends with my wife on the daily.

With that said, we had something new happen! We recently had some friends over, and they brought their daughter - Felicia. Now Felicia is not her real name, so don't try to find her. What makes me happy is that Felicia is 12 months old -- just two months younger than my kid. What also makes me happy is that they started to interact.

Now I love to watch human interaction. And watching to toddlers is the best, because it is unfiltered. While they were playing, Felicia would often stick her hand out to grab my son's hair. Now I did not have a terrible issue with this, so long as she was gentle; in all but one situation, she was. While Felicia was trying to interact with my kid, her parents were fretting over her being too aggressive with it. At one point, her father leaned in to explain that she cannot be aggressive or a bully. It just so happens that he did this as she was swinging her arm, and smacked him in the face.

Again, with all of this, I was fairly neutral. My kid was doing alright, and Felicia was doing alright. The biggest issue was with the grown-ups. Everytime Felicia would reach out, they would yell "no". My kid is not accustomed to people yelling, and would start looking to see if he was the one in trouble. The adults would all look very serious, and my kid would cry. I was the only one who wasn't serious, so he would then run to hug me.

Now at one point, my kid was pretty damn happy. He was being held my my wife, and he and I were alternating laughs. He does this thing where he gives a guttural cackle/laugh, and then waits for it to be reciprocated. He and I were going back and forth a bit, and then briefly stopped. During that pause, Felicia tripped and fell. My son then chose that exact moment to start laughing again. That's right, my son was getting hit in the face, waited for Felicia to fall and cry, and then started laughing again! We chalked it up to be that it was just awkward timing, but I suspect he actually enjoyed the humor/vengeance.

Those friends eventually left, and we went back to our normal routine. It was interesting to see how differently they were raising Felicia, compared to how we raise our kid. They seemed very analytical and somewhat like you'd expect from Chinese parents. Conversely, we are raising our kid with a hybrid of the Chinese and American system. We let our son watch educational television. We let him run and play and explore everything. We feed him as much as we can, while trying to keep it healthy. And we focus on making sure he is happy.

That is not to say that our friends are not trying to keep their little girl happy. It is simply to say that we have a very different approach to it all. I cannot speak for my wife, but I know that I seem a bit more relaxed around our kid. I am strict when it is necessary, but otherwise I let him go. I guess we'll see what happens when he grows up.

Moral of the Story: Different parents have different approaches, and my son may have a new friend. Also, my son laughed at someone after they fell. That's what you get for grabbing his hair, bitch. Sorry about that bitch part. That was too much. But still, that's what you get.