Pinky Dinky Doo

I have said it before and I don't apologize for it. My children watch television. There are days when we don't watch any at all and there are days when we watch more than we should. I am grateful I am a parent now when there are choices about what your child can watch. I had a conversation with two friends once about how our 1970s parents let us watch whatever was on. It took me twenty years to realize that Janet Jackson's character Penny on Good Times had been burned by her mother during the commercial break. However, at age six, I got REALLY mad with JR on Dallas not acting like Major Nelson. "WHERE'S JEANNIE? WHERE'S JEANNIE?" I screamed at my dumbfounded parents. They probably should have taken that cue and said, "She's in bed, let's go find her."

I want to plug a show that has been a great help to me. My daughter never sat for stories. She never cared for plots and character development. If I asked her what happened, she would either say, "Nothing" or "I don't remember." She couldn't re-tell me anything. Since my memory is perfect, instant recall, like my whole life happened yesterday, this really stressed me out.

Even if she didn't tell me what happened, she has always loved books. When she was one, I had, like all good moms, baskets and baskets of "edible" books. She would take the books and pick them up, flip them, and throw them. Then we would put the books back in the basket, and she would start the process again and again and again. I didn't know this wasn't normal. About six months later, I had to take them out of her room all together because she was chewing them down until she fell asleep. Oh the memories.

She got older, and I had to deal. What to do about stories? All of those speech goals came back over and over and over again: 1) Answer simple questions. 2) Sequence events 3) Re-tell in her own words. OK, as her mom, these are some of my favorite things. I spent my elementary and middle school years in the high language arts classes and resource math. Caught all kinds of hell for it too. How could my child not want to do it?

We worked on it. We worked on it a lot. One of her favorite things was sequence puzzles. First, we put on our socks, then our shoes, then we tie them, THEN we go outside. Not too difficult, but the problem with those is that her mother doesn't always have it together. I would totally run out the door in two different socks and a barefoot baby in New England in February.

Enter the television show Pinky Dinky Doo. A little girl with (HURRAY! TRUMPET!) a little brother AND a pet guinea pig. They live in the big city with their parents and Pinky tells stories in her story box with her brother and guinea pig. THEN they play all kinds of games to make sure that the children watching at home get the story.

Some of the great games: "What came first?" "Who said what?" and "The Great Big Fancy Word Game." Next thing I know, something that I spent quite a bit of money on came naturally to her. We even went up to the attic and dragged down a wardrobe box that we colored and cut apart until it became our very own story box. It is still falling apart in the playroom, although we did hide it on the day one of mommy's childless Manhattan friends came for a visit.

What do I personally like about this cartoon chick? Well, she is a chick. Not that I am a super uber feminist, but it is nice when a main character is a female every now and then. Another thing that keeps my kids rolling on the floor is all of her "appropriate" potty talk. Once they were in a spaceship made out of a toilet and they thought they were going to land on a planet full of crying babies with dirty diapers. You better believe she had my children's attention.

The songs and the catch phrases stick with you, Yesarooni, Positooni... for one is quite obnoxious, but at this point of my motherhood career, if children are happy, I am sane. She also teaches both of my kids to think if a problem arises. Bottom line, if your child is struggling with story telling, make room in your child's schedule for this one.

No, despite my shortcomings, my kids don't watch television 24/7. We do have two televisions, and once in a while they want to watch different things, but Frances and Kenneth tend to gravitate toward each other, so it isn't really that necessary. Thanks to cable, gone are the days of my siblings and I getting to stay up on Friday nights for The Dukes of Hazard but ending up still awake to watch Kristen shoot J.R. On snowy days when I can't take it anymore, Pinky is on Nick Jr. doing her thing.

And I'm scrubbing the floors with my bare hands while I make a three course dinner ...ha ha ha.

Princess Puzzle Piece 2: Geography

The princesses are not going anywhere. Since they are not going anywhere, I’m trying to take advantage of them. I’m trying to think outside the box, and use these women to meet my needs. How can a princess serve me? How can we change the activities around? Come to me ladies, please! There has to be more than a big wedding and happily ever after.

Maybe it was time spent yesterday with an old friend with very talented artistic ability, but I got creative today. My daughter and I worked on geography. Where do all these princesses live when they aren’t doing time in Orlando, Florida? This is the list I came up with, and please forgive me if I messed up a country, continent, state, or city. I didn’t mean to and I will change it immediately. I kind of went with Disney movie versions; although I know they change a little from country to country.

Snow White: Germany
Briar Rose: Germany
Cinderella: France
Belle: France
Ariel: Denmark
Pocahontas: Virginia
Mulan: China
Jasmine: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Middle East?
Nala: Africa
Tiana: New Orleans
Jessie (from Toy Story II): Texas
Kida (From Atlantis): The Mediterranean Sea?
Alice in Wonderland: England


We found a map of the world and printed it out. Then we found images of the princesses and cut and pasted them into a word document and printed them out. THEN we used scissors and a glue stick to create a “Princess World” map. Now she knows where the princesses live, and we put a picture of “Princess Frances” in Connecticut. In addition to a wonderfully pink and frilly geography lesson, we also used computer and fine motor skills. (BIG PAT ON MY BACK….)

She loved it, and I love using what she loves!

How else will these women help me? Wait and see…..

Happy Valentines Day!!!!!

Valentine’s Day is supposed to be about love. Love for your partner, your children, your gold fish. What fun! Nope. It is another opportunity for me to “Quack” up.

This year we had to make not one but two shoebox valentine mailboxes. My son’s class specifically said shoebox and put an example on the paper with “mail slot here” and “name here” on the directions. I swear they did this specifically for me because last year I was very proud of his creatively painted milk carton. These people assume we keep shoe boxes lying around. I did indeed find some, although what I would not have given for my son to walk in there with a cereal or oatmeal box just to be different.

I was not in the mood to paint this year. Maybe last year I was in newborn coma, or maybe I was in the mood to impress, but this year I bought up all the valentine stickers I could find and let them go at decorating those shoe boxes the no mess way. My son was very strategic about where those stickers went. He lined them up and had patterns going. My daughter slapped them everywhere and seemed happy with the way it came out. Good for both of them, if they are happy, I am not listening to them scream. Kenneth’s teacher said his was absolutely beautiful. She has been doing what she does for twenty something years, so she might be really good at hiding it. Frances hasn’t taken hers to school yet. What I wouldn’t do to actually be a volunteer on that day….

Last year I scored points by having them make their valentines. This year they wanted to buy them. Why argue? Why pick a battle? When you think about buying all the supplies to make the homemade ones and the aggravation of a toddler trying to climb on the table and eat the paint, this year we can conform. It is only fair, since their shoeboxes are covered in stickers. We left the store with Harry Potter and Disney Princesses on sale for 2.50. Yay!

The next step was filling out the valentines. You can’t just write, “Love, Little Freddy” on the card. The homework assignment was to address each “To” with the name of the kid and each “From” with her name. This took three days with Frances. I give credit to her O.T. and the Handwriting without Tears program that it only took three days. Without it, it would have taken a week if she didn’t just give up.

The final quacking step was putting it all together and my middle big mouth child pipes up, “But what is the prize, Mom?”

Prize? What prize? Isn’t it enough that you have a mom that is willing to sit here with you and let you make a mess on the kitchen table without throwing a hissy fit? What prize? He didn’t let it go, “You have to put a prize in the valentine, but it can’t be candy.” No, it can’t. All candy has been taken out of public schools and my dear friend Maria Montessori didn’t believe in it. Crap. Because I knew it was going to snow the next day, I loaded up all three of them and drove to the CVS for “prizes.”

This is Connecticut. If you don’t know what I mean by that, you need to see the selected works of Jennifer Weiner. But the point I am going to make without a lot of details is that this was three days before all the Valentine’s Day parties all over town. The only thing left in the stores was candy. And why was the quacking candy left? Oh yeah, BECAUSE IT ISN’T ALLOWED! No pencils, no bubbles, no erasers, nothing, and I mean nothing was left. So my kids would be the only kids at either of their schools that showed up with just a little piece of paper made in China that said thanks for being my friend. No, I couldn’t do that to them. I wouldn’t do that to them. I had to think outside my “Mommy Box.”

Two of those little “Miracles” that only happen to moms happened to me in the CVS. First, Kenneth said, “Look Mommy! I want those!” and he was pointing to little heart shaped slinkies. All right, not my first choice, but when we got them home, he and his brother could not stop playing with the two I let them open, so it must be a male thing. Whatever. Perfect. One child happy.

With Frances it took a little more thinking. As we were combing the aisles we found a box of 100 crayons, and it came to me. We went home and printed out coloring hearts. We cut out the blank ones and put them in bags with three crayons each-everyone can color a heart when they get home. She loved it! I hope some of the kids actually color the heart. I’m sure they will. All moms love that ten to fifteen minutes we get while the kids look at the shoebox that will make its way to the garbage eventually.

If I ever got my act together, how much fun would they have? Really? At least this year I saw the “Red” party sign up sheet before it was full….

Valentine’s Day down, Easter to go…..