To read makes our speaking English good.

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So. How’s it going?

Not bad over here. Still a little more tightly wound than I’d like, thanks to some unforeseen changes that I’ve talked about privately, but I’m nothing if not resilient, right?

I’m having to take a day off tomorrow, to cover Bean’s not being in school yet, and had planned to take the girls up to the zoo in Waco. But all this rain has me a little worried that all the animals will be sittin’ on a big boat when we get there … it’s not a super long drive but long enough that I’d hate to waste the trip.

Have you heard the kerfluffle about the Baby Einstein DVDs? How people are all excited that Disney’s offering refunds because – shocker – baby’s brains really *aren’t* improved by watching the DVDs?

Disney says that it’s just their standard policy, and the big fastoosh is actually people making mountains out of molehills (the four-year-old’s new favorite phrase) for their own grandstanding.

To me, it’s more a statement of how lazy we’ve become as parents, if we truly believe that a video takes the place of us and what we’re supposed to do for and with our children. There’s no way I’ll be seeking a refund because I never bought ‘em thinking they’d make my kids smarter – I bought ‘em because they were a more developmentally appropriate babysitter than Buffy the Vampire slayer was.

Yeah, I said it out loud. Babysitter. Anyone who really expected a video to make their kid smarter doesn’t need a refund – they need their own set of brain-building videos. Seriously. TV and videos are just ways to buy time for parents. Sometimes it’s time to pursue noble causes like a shower or making a meal; sometimes it’s time to pontificate on a blog. But it’s not called the boob tube for nothin’ folks.

I actually never really dug on the DVDs because the midi-style classical music annoyed the crapola out of me. And I just never got how watching a bunch of wind-up toys was a vast improvement over TV + commercials. I was a much bigger fan of Classical Baby – good music, good art and nice little animals.

What do you think? Should people be walking around, fist-bumping because they feel like this is some kind of admission on Disney’s part? Does anyone really deserve a refund because a video didn’t make their kid smarter?

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