Vaughn woke up at an obscenely early hour this morning. (I think it was 8 or something like that, which is obscene considering he didn't actually fall asleep until 10 p.m. or so the night before.) We do try to get him in bed at a reasonable hour most of the time (8 p.m.), but he manages to keep himself distracted and awake until 10 or thereabouts. His techniques range anywhere from repeatedly slamming his head or various other body parts against his bed's headboard and the surrounding walls to enlisting our participation in a sudden epiphany or invention or creation of the moment. His greatest inspirations seem to come after the hours of 9 p.m. Last night he slithered his way up the stairs to the foot of our bed at around 9:30 and covertly handed me a "card" he had just made. I guess all this undercover action was in an effort to keep from alerting Dave to his presence. I'm afraid Dave was already wise to him, though, because Vaughn had to slither his way past the side of the bed where Dave was perched, watching TV, to get to me, and then, ever so sneakily, slither his way back past Dave, back down the stairs to feign sleep in his equally sneaky manner.
Anyway, I put on OPB this morning and let him watch it in our bed so Mommy could get some more "rest." I think I mentioned that my New Year's resolution this year was to be the best mediocre mom, and in working towards that goal I do liberally use the TV as my nanny 24/7. In the background I start to hear the pithy theme song of Bob the Builder.
"What day is today?"
"Wednesday."
"So Bob is on Sundays and Wednesdays." Vaughn says this like he's figured out some complex math problem. Hey, he may not be able to read, but I'll have my own live-in human TV Guide. Unfortunately, it will only have the listings for PBS kids programming, but I can work with that.
Twenty-five minutes later, Bob is wrapping up his program with his usual meaningful life lesson--something about trees and recycling or some other environmental crap. I really liked Bob when he was an actual builder and cut trees down, sawed them up, and used them to expand the growing metropolis of Bobville, but then the Powers That Be decided the show needed a little refreshing. This involved, among other things, a new British character in the form of a quad bike (because a construction site isn't complete without one of those, and if a quad bike could talk, you know it would have a British accent) and a new, more gay, voice for Bob. Bob didn't have the most masculine voice to begin with, but evidently, it was too butch for the new theme of "Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle." Yes that is a very common refrain on new construction sites everywhere as they're bulldozing down acres of old growth, herds of little helpless forest creatures scampering frantically ahead of them, snatching a last desperate glance back at what used to be their home.
Bob now spends more of his time..well...reducing, reusing, and recycling, waiting for old trees to succumb to Mother Nature before building anything, and scrounging around in his neighbor's garbage for other building materials. Because of this new politically correct Bob, I haven't been as keen on Vaughn watching it. Frankly, it gives me the creeps, and this morning's episode did nothing to reassure me.
Bob: That's right, Lofty. Remember what I always say, "Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle." (They repeat this ad nauseam in every episode, just in case the little kiddies don't get it the first time.)
Beside me, I hear a quiet monotone child's voice: "Reduce, reuse, recycle. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Reduce, reuse, recycle..." I turn and Vaughn is staring, unblinking, at the TV monitor, rocking back and forth, repeating this mantra again and again as if his life depended on it. Okay, now that is just creepy.
Don't misunderstand. I don't have a problem with recycling as a concept. We recycle, but not obsessively and more out of practicality than because we actually "love our Mother" (Earth). We get more mileage out of our allowance of 1 garbage can a week if we recycle. If we didn't recycle, we'd have mountains of refuse heaped in our backyard because we're too cheap to pay for the extra garbage can. We finally had some professionals come in to finish our deck. One of the carpenters, evidently environmental inclined, admired the fact that Dave had used a pail handle as part of the deck's cement foundation--part of that whole reuse motto. What he didn't know is that Dave didn't use it to re-use it. He used it because it was within arm's reach at the time and it didn't cost him anything.
No, I don't have a problem with the general concept of reduce, reuse, recycle. I have a problem with burdening 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds with the idea that they need to police the waste disposing activities of their homes. I was raised with the 3 R's, only at the time I just thought I had a cheap dad. I was taught the 3 R's often and regularly. For example, I didn't learn to ride a bike without training wheels until I was 12. I wasn't developmentally delayed or anything. It's just that it wasn't until then that my feet could actually hit the ground while sitting on my bike. You see, I graduated from my tricycle straight to an adult bike, complete with fatherly fashioned training wheels, neither of which hit the ground unless I was dangerously tilted to one side or the other. My dad figured: Why buy her an age appropriate bike when we know she still has a good 10 or so years of growth in her? That's a waste. (Reduce) Why buy and get rid of 2 or more cheap bikes in the next 10 years when we could just buy 1 cheap bike now that she can take with her when she moves out of the house? And furthermore, (my dad's a Planner), why buy training wheels from a thrift shop that she's eventually not going to need when we have perfectly good metal laying around and a welder that is just itching to be used? I'm sure the wheels came from my trike (Reuse), and he probably melted my trike down for the metal (Recycle).
Ah, sweet, sweet memories. Aw, I love you, Dad. *muh*
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