The Duck Song

I used to tell young parents that until their kids learned to read, there was no sedating them.

We've since learned that television does a more than admirable job Not that I'm condoning it. FD and I literally cut the power cord. He transformed the piece still attacked to the TV to a female, and added a male connector to the other (both ends male) and either took it with him to work, or hid it where we thought they would never think to find it. They would, of course, we heard years later, and dangerously fiddled with the double-ended male electrical cord, eventually turning on the tube to watch He-Man and the like.  It is a miracle no one electrocuted themselves.

But anything electronic will lull most of us into a state of uncomfortable consciousness, sleep without the glitter. There seems to be research to the effect that our electronics keep us awake. It isn't that way for everyone, and with very small children the effect might be paradoxical. It probably depends upon what they see and how much sugar they had before bed. There are always variables unaccounted for.

Steven Kellogg and Margaret Mahey treasures

Sometimes I have the privilege of putting my grandson to sleep, apparently a task no other babysitter is equipped to do, and we have a routine and it includes both the hard and the soft drugs, meaning real books hard, and animation or old Beatles songs on my phone, soft. He'd love to ditch the paper in favor of the electronic, but I won't let him. He can read, too, if he tries. He's almost six.

Fact is, when children can't read yet, or are only just beginning to read, someone has to read to them, or should read to them, for reading is a wonderful sedative and we depend upon it to learn, that and other ways. Bedtime is the best time to introduce it. Mother Goose is totally out, by the way, a bad idea, as Into the Woods has made abundantly clear, too violent and libidinous. Aesop's fables, surely had a moral, but at what price, nightmares?

But remember the frog and toad books? They're still around. And if you've never met Robert, not lived through his experiences with hippos following him home from school, you haven't lived. We gorged on anything by Steven Kellogg in my family (Can I Keep Him?), and checking Amazon, there are no less than 641 pages of books by the celebrated author-illustrator. He also wrote the Pinkerton books. Let's not forget The Green Bath by Margaret Mahy, and Much Bigger Than Martin, a story in every younger brother's top five. 





My daughter-in-law surprised me when she said that she sits on the floor with her little guys, just two, and they stare at her phone, watch the animated version of Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. It is on YouTube.  Don't judge. Watch it. I dare you to stay awake. 

So that got me started, but when I showed it to their cousin one night, perched on his enormously tall bed in pajamas the very first time, he did not fall asleep and only wanted to see more animation. So we scrolled through the suggested children's books on video, rejecting most of them as too seedy or too boring, and suddenly we found The Duck Song. (The song by Bryant Oden, video, Forrest Whaley). This is not about Donald. It is an upbeat video-joke, obviously a song Bryant made-up while trying to put somebody to sleep, monotonous but cheery, seemingly never-ending, with a punchline at the end. We kind of love it. At almost six, my grandson gets it that the duck's mission is to annoy the guy at the lemonade stand. A duck walks up to a lemonade stand and he says to the man running the stand, "Hey, you got any. . .grapes?" The duck is teasing him, pure and simple.

Last night I have the honors, and as we cuddle up on this enormously high bed looking for something new and fun on YouTube, the closest thing to new and fun is a video of a small group of children between 5 and 13 watching The Duck Song, discussing their reactions. Some are really angry at the duck for being so annoying (they must have younger siblings). Some get it, like my grandson gets it, that it is fun to be the object of a prank, and it is fun to be the perpetrator of the joke, too. Best to be able to take it, even better, to predict it.

Great moral, teaching about being the brunt of a joke, handing over the control, even if it is to a duck. How many kids have avoided depression in just this way, by laughing at themselves?

therapydoc

P.S. I realize it is not that simple, avoiding depression, and the anti-bullying programs are late, but here to stay, for good reason. Bullying and child-adolescence are associated, so if your child is the object, do not tell him, Hey, just laugh along. Get a family therapist and talk to the people at the school. But there is such a thing as benign teasing, meant to be taken well.

And when I need a good laugh, all I have to do is ask a six-year-old, almost any six-year-old,  "Hey, got any grapes?"

P.S.S. For all the years I've been blogging, I still don't know how to create links in a consistent fashion. Just know that any type that isn't black is probably a link to a book, or a movie, or a resource. It could be yellow, ochre, red, scarlet, or if you are color-challenged, another shade, but it will take you somewhere if you click on it. 

Snapshots, Ghosts, and Good Reads

What kind of a fan would I be if I didn't say something about the Blackhawks? Last night they won their first Stanley Cup since 1961. Now that was wonderful. It doesn't get better than this for Chicago. Of course, we want to know, why are people still playing hockey mid-June?

A few weeks ago I went to a baseball game, watched as the St. Louis Cardinals clobbered the Chicago Cubs, as usual. It was all too depressing. Real soon I'll get serious, write a therapy post about managing this, depression and sports. Or just depression.

Last Thursday I canceled out and got on an airplane, returned with a carousel of slides, invited all my friends over to see pictures of my trip to France, Germany, and Italy.

No, not really. I went to Atlanta, ninety minutes by air, to visit my kids and their kids and the machetunim (too tired to explain this word). The machs provide me healthy snacks with sugar, like Think Fruit (sold out on Amazon, but I tried). Healthy snacks with sugar-- not an oxymoron in the South.

1.

That's a snapshot, not mine, of a swagman, a Matilda. The joke is that the song, Waltzing Matilda, according to FD, our resident music expert, isn't even a waltz. Waltzing Matilda, however, has its own museum, the Waltzing Matilda Centre in Winton, Queensland. Not too many songs have that, their own museum.

Why Matilda?

The kid is a little cranky and his Mom tells me,

"Just wait until we turn on Waltzing Matilda. You've never seen a kid smile like this one smiles when he hears Waltzing Matilda."

And she's right, of course. It's a smile that lights up the room, and the chant, Tilda, Tilda, delicious. The next Matilda he meets, he'll surely follow home.

Waltzing Matilda is a folk ballad written in 1887 by Australian poet Bajo Paterson. This unofficial national anthem is the story of a swagman or hobo, a drifter who carries his few things in an over-the-shoulder sack hanging from a stick. The swagman in the legend is caught steeling a sheep, a crime punishable by death in Australia, circa 1887. He hastens the execution by ending his own life, then returns as a ghost, apparently to dance.

This isn't going to be good for my kids, is all I can say, when they hear the real story. One can only hope that the song loses its glitter real soon.

2.



I chose Atlanta over Paris because Rak told me her pantry was a mess; she needed me. Although many people, maybe most, resent their mothers-in-law when they begin to clean, move things around, meddle in their lives, Rak does not, knowing I'm a total sucker for a good pantry.

3.



The kids belong to a book club and wouldn't you know, they sent Rak a parenting book, one I'd read about on DaMomma's blog. Rak hasn't read it, she hasn't got time to do most things, but child psychologist Wendy Mogel had me at the title-- The Blessing of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children.

You know how I feel about self-reliance (a.k.a. independence) and taking calculated risks-- both good-- maybe to the degree that a person breaks a little skin on occasion. At least get a paper cut without freaking out.

Skinned Knee is a quick read, one full of good behavioral strategies for parents, and lots of fabulous theology, if you like that sort of thing.*

4.

It's a jungle in Atlanta in the summertime, all green and wet and fertile. You can't predict the weather; it changes hour to hour, minute to minute, but you can count on the humidity. At least that's how it is whenever I visit. But they grow bamboo in the backyard, so it feels very exotic, if wet, and hardly ever snows, which might be a good thing.

Before picking up Skinned, I was in the middle of a war novel about Viet Nam, a random find at the library.



Tim O'Brien, the guy with the baseball cap, author of  The Things They Carried, had to make the decision that many draftees made in the sixties,

Do I run away, dodge the draft, move to Canada?

Or,

Do I fight a war I'm pretty sure I don't believe in?

What a choice!

Mr. O'Brien chose war rather than cope with the townies whispering coward behind his back. Shows how far we'll go for our reputations, what we'll do to avoid bullies.

The Things They Carried is literally about what they carried with them, our troops in Viet Nam, and the telling of war stories. He tells us that if you don't tell your stories, if you don't talk, you will be sick.  One story, perhaps the most powerful, is about a soldier who can't talk about his experiences in Viet nam, post-war. The best he can do is drive around the lake alone in his father's old Chevy, again and again and again. He can't talk and he doesn't make it, doesn't survive civilian life.

You read this book until you can't take anymore stories, then you put it down, take a break, read something else. But make no mistake, you come back to finish it. The things they carried, some heavy, some symbolic, all terribly, terribly lush.

5.

I don't have a photo of the tomatoes or flowers, but on one of my walks with my granddaughter (4) we met up with a typical Southerner who offered us starter flower and vegetable plants to take home and plant, which we did. Another neighbor wouldn't let us move on until she packed us up with fruit and crackers. This is not a Yankee town.

6.

We had to go to the Botanical Gardens, of course. FD is a very empathetic guy, you can tell, communes with nature.


They have flowers there at the gardens, and frogs, and the trees hug you, apparently, if you're not careful, with their oxygen.

7.



Trees Hug Back is the headline.

Remember that bumper sticker, Have you hugged your kid today? What happened to that campaign? Probably too much hugging-- all those helicopter parents spoiled it for everyone.

8.

FD found us a new park to break in, complete with nature trails made from recycled tires.



You young people may not even realize that there was a time when a kid had to skin his knees. There was no choice. A playground was a dangerous place, none of this soft landing stuff.

9.

Speaking of landings.



That's an AirTran wing.  I did not sit with FD, and the fellow who had the window seat to my right, James, did his best to get out of my way so I could take a picture.  But it was still hard to focus from the center seat. James had pushed out his hand for me to shake the moment we made eye contact, and it was refreshing, such natural warmth. I think it's a southern thing, but we do feel it, sometimes, when we travel by air, no?

We landed in Chicago, fairly softly, Sunday night around midnight, about as softly as one can on that short runway at Midway.

Good to go, good to come home. The CBT post might be more significant, I guess.

Although there's nothing insignificant, you have to agree, about ghosts.

therapydoc

*Some of us might consider this a kiddish haShem, (rhymes with skittish ha! gem)a positive force in the universe.