Starting Early

This picture only gives me slight heart palpitations. Visions of my son as a teenager give me full on cold sweats...

As if you needed more reasons to love Sesame Street

It's no secret to most people who read this blog that my laptop is generally considered my third arm. An extension of my body, attached to me at all times. (Okay, sometimes replaced by my blackberry.) The boys love to try to "help" me type as I'm working away (I figure one day I'll be helping them with a procrastinated book report at midnight, right? So they might as well help me work on my marketing case studies now, don't you think?) and inevitably whenever the laptop is powered up, Graham will ask me to "play music." In Graham-speak, this means he wants to watch Sesame Street videos on YouTube.

He doesn't know yet to ask directly for YouTube (though he currently thinks most electronic music-playing devices are iPods) as I'm not sure I necessarily want to encourage his Internet fluency quite yet, I mean at least not until age three or four, right? But because I love that YouTube offers short snippets of video rather than entire episodes, I somehow feel in control of his TV-watching when it's on YouTube rather than "real" TV, so I always give in and take a minute to watch Elmo singing and dancing with letters of the alphabet and other Sesame pals. There is nothing like spicing up marketing research or PR strategy with a little sprinkle of the letter G singing and dancing with a red furry monster. I mean, it really gets the creative juices flowing! And yes, we LOVE Elmo at the Hawks house. (I mean, have you seen my Elmo cake creation from Graham's second birthday? I stayed up late and gave myself arthritis to get that thing done!)

And because we've now seen so many Sesame Street segments on YouTube, I've started to realize how beautifully the brains behind this 39-year-old beloved series have orchestrated parental interest into the programming (a.k.a. celebrities). My favorite Elmo video on YouTube right now is Andrea Bocelli singing Elmo to sleep. It is the kind of thing that I myself want to watch myself every night before bed, with or without my toddler. (Hey, it's Andrea Bocelli singing a lullaby! Who wouldn't want to fall asleep to that?! And by the way, I could probably fall asleep to anything! I have two toddlers, remember!?) Last week, Graham watched Andrea and Elmo on my laptop probably four times and cried because I wouldn't let him watch it a fifth time. Enter that control thing I mentioned before.

And it's not just Andrea Bocelli. In the mood for educational hip hop (who isn't?)? Just fire up Destiny's Child or Chris Brown dancing to songs about walking and street signs. Feeling more bluesy? How about Norah Jones' musical lament about why she misses the letter Y? Yes, marketing a musical act to mom through the goldmine that is Sesame Street is certainly savvy marketing. I am the sucker mom who, after hearing Andrea Bocelli singing Elmo a lullaby, totally powered up iTunes to see what adult-intended Andrea Bocelli classics I might be interested in. It works!

So, what's next? A product placement in our Clifford books? Well, hopefully not, but in the meantime the boys and I will continue to scan YouTube to catch celebs hanging with the Street gang and entertaining parents and toddlers. You know, those little people who will likely in a couple years know more about the Internet than I do today.

Conversations with a 2-year-old

Him: "I want to take my leg off."

Me: "No, you can't take your leg off. You need your leg."
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Me (at the zoo): "Look at the seals!"

Him: "Those are sea lions."

(Yes, I was corrected by a 2-year-old! Humbling!)
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Him (very seriously): "You better tickle me right there on my neck, Mommy."
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Me: "Did you play outside today? You got some dirt on your leg."

Him: "It's poop."

Me: "No, it's not poop. It's dirt."

Him: "No, it's poop."
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Him: "I don't hear the owls, Daddy. OOOOOOWWWWWWLLSS?!"

Wordless Wednesday

Apologies and First Day of School

Yes, it's been awhile. But the first step to recovery is owning up to it...so I am admitting right here and now: I am too ambitious. I take on too much. I started a blog. But I had already started a life. As you can tell, if you have been checking here for a recent post, other things have gotten in the way of my blogging in the past few weeks. So first things first: I'm sorry for the delay! In the past few weeks, I started the new semester (oh yeah, I'm still in graduate school, you know -- the six year plan), took a long weekend to Vegas with Hubby, visited friends in Dallas, worked on our half bath "project," got a new vehicle, completed several appointments and to-dos, continued to raise to future leaders, and oh don't forget -- worked at my "other" full-time job (as in my paying job, because of course mothering is my first full-time job).


Graham started school as well. To clarify, he started a Parents Day Out program at a nearby church. This gives Mimi a little break in her week, which now consists of THREE baby boys since Henry started coming after Sara went back to work last week. So a couple Thursdays ago (yikes, it's been a while since I last posted, I mean I had to say a "couple" Thursdays -- bad!) we took him to his first day of "school." He had to bring a backpack and a lunchbox so he is officially a little boy. I think the backpack was the tipping point. And quite a mature little boy, might I add. When we walked into the classroom on that first morning (yes, mom and dad both took him the first day -- we are so proud!), where we saw about 10 kids, all the boys were crying and none of the girls were. (You go, girls!) And I mean these were massive tears. So I looked at my little man, wearing his backpack as big as his body, surveying the room and sizing up the teachers. I pondered his thoughts and figured they could be going one of two ways: either "What are these boys' problems? Take me to the train set!" or "Why are my mommy and daddy leaving me here where there is obviously something really wrong?!" His actions signaled to me that the former was reality. He beelined to the trains and without a word gave us a kiss and started playing quietly. Later in the day, the teachers indicated he completed day one like a pro.

That's my man. The connsumate professional. (Professional lover of trainsets.)

Wordless Wednesday

Performing surgery in the Stone Age

This week was staycation week. Should have been vacation week, but Hurricane Dolly blew through those plans. Once it was confirmed we would have to cancel our flights to the beach, I immediately switched gears and drafted a staycation plan with details for each day of the week and forwarded it to Hubby Hawks for review and approval. He approved but with an addendum: we would spend the final weekend in Vegas – two fun-loving adults with no regard for diapers or tantrums. Oh yeah. (Thanks Grandma and Papa!) And that’s as much as I’ll say about Vegas on my “mommy blog.”

So back to that “stay” part of staycation. It was action packed. Because of course sleeping is for sissies, even during staycation. We kicked it off with a puppet show, then a train ride, next a day at the zoo, then a day at the water park, and we threw in dinner at T-Rex, the dinner “experience” restaurant. Having no expectations, I actually loved it. Of course, it’s a fantastic family-of-four tourist trap, but I kinda loved being a “tourist,” trapped in my own city. And I am a complete sucker for anything that gets my boys’ eyes wide and wheels turning. The gigantic, fake, moving and breathing dinosaurs that live inside the T-Rex restaurant certainly did that. The food, not so much. The boys ate corn dogs -- as I’m sure the ancient cave people ate as well -- and I had a realization as Hubby and I were sitting there dissecting and blowing on each mini-dog on their plates:

I am always performing surgery on my sons’ food.

And sure enough, there I was, sitting in the Stone Age or Ice Age, or wherever I was, next to a life size woolly mammoth, performing surgery once again. Inevitably, each time we go out to dinner, or eat at home for that matter, the boys’ dinner is too hot for them to eat it when it’s finally ready. And they’re starving. Or have already filled up on Goldfish because they were starving. And about to have a break down. And so not interested in the umpteenth matchbox car I’ve got in my bag of tricks (a.k.a. the diaper bag). So the first thing Hubby and I do as soon as it is placed on the table is steal it from them, take the scalpel to it and start puffing away on it, pumping it with as much cool oxygen as we can before passing out.

Why is it that here we are decades after the introduction of the microwave, and we still don’t have a small appliance that zaps food in the other direction – taking it from steaming hot to just right? I would be first in line.