TBnJ

This weekend was busy, but we still had time to watch a few videos.

Veggie Tales: Sumo of the Opera-- The kids loved this. The first main skit is a parody of Larry, Moe and Curly as well as Laurel and Hardy, and the kids thought it was hysterical. Mr. Nezzer was driving his work crew to a piano moving job, and T asked, "Are they slaves?" Daddy-o said, "No! They're just workers." I told Daddy-o that some people might feel that's one and the same thing.

The next skit on the video was about St. Patrick who really was a slave. When T is watching tv, he imitates sound effects and often lines of text. It drives me nuts, but he has a blast doing it. He can roll his Rs amazingly well, something I will never be able to conquer. He also can do an admirable job of imitating an Irish accent, too. He was also imitating the Irish accent in the subsequent movie this weekend.

While all the kids enjoyed this movie, I didn't. I was annoyed at how pagans were portrayed in the St. Patrick skit-- basically as mindless stupid creatures. I realize this video is coming from an overtly Christian perspective, but we're trying to teach the kids to be respectful of all people and religious choices. As we have friends who consider themselves pagans, I didn't appreciate this portrayal.

Eloise at the Plaza-- All three kids adored this live action film. It was not scary and had very little suspense to it. I had checked out The Absolutely Essential Eloise for J to read, and she had conquered it on Friday or Saturday. When I told her that I had also checked out an Eloise movie, she was ecstatic as she loves Eloise. Daddy-o said to her, "You just love Eloise because she's a little monster." J gave a big grin which confirmed Daddy-o's analysis. Despite Eloise's troublesome manner, I think the worst thing the kids probably learned from the film was how to charge room service. T was also confused by why anyone would want to set their food on fire intentionally (a la flambé). We are going to have to show him this video.

I also have checked out Eloise takes a Bawth, but J is still working on reading it. She has requested that I get all the Eloise books out eventually. She also has requested "longer" books since many of the ones I've been selecting lately are too easy. However, with her, there's a fine limit as to too short and too long. I think her mentally ideal book is 75-100 pages right now, but she's quite capable of reading longer. To try and get her to realize there is life after Junie B. Jones, I asked her last week what she would like books to be about. She replied "unicorns" which are her fascination of the moment. So I've gotten the first book from four girls' fantasy series which feature unicorns in them. We'll have to see if any of them take. (And if you are wondering, no, she's not overly fond of Ramona. We've tried.)

I actually don't check out the library books or movies. I put them on hold on the computer, and Daddy-o goes by the library once or twice a week and picks them up in their convenient drive-thru. The kids give me requests, and so I just put those in the computer for them. It's a pretty good system. The kids do go to the library and browse the shelves on occasion. When they do, J always comes home with Junie B. Jones, and B gets Franklin books. It's pretty easy to predict that one!

The kids also went hiking at the Wildflower Center yesterday afternoon. J tried to take pictures, but the camera wasn't working.

Labels: around the house, books, in Austin, kid sayings, movies and tv