We try very hard to limit Yuki’s TV watching time. Our general (and sort of arbitrary) rule is that she should not watch it for more than 60 minutes a day. So we divide it into two viewings—one in the morning, after breakfast, and one in the afternoon either right when she gets home from daycare, or after her nap if she is already home. Of course, this doesn’t always work, but we try.
She began with “Wonder Pets,” then “Yo Gabba Gabba,” then we mixed in “Olivia.” “Wonder Pets” dropped off, then for a while it was just Gabba and Olivia back and forth. Then Philip found “Pocoyo” which has 7 minute episodes. Then we introduced her to “Pixar Shorts,” which is a DVD compilation of all the Pixar short films. Each of them is from 2 to 5 minutes long, and she can watch them over and over (and over and over) again until we reach the 30 minute limit.
Some days you have to leave time for wearing three pairs of legwarmers all at once.
Our standards for what we’ll let her watch (and for what we’ll sit through) are
1. It must contain good/fun music (Gabba and Wonder Pets)
2. It must have good characters (Olivia)
3. It has to have a sense of humor, preferably in the way of physical comedy (Pocoyo & Pixar)
Later, when she is old enough to sit through feature films, we will care about good story telling.
And sometimes you just have to hang out and play drums.
Anyway, last weekend, I broke out The Sound of Music and showed her a few of the musical numbers. Her jaw actually dropped open while she watched. She didn’t blink. When I was a child, my mother (who adores Julie Andrews) used to tell me to “walk like Julie Andrews” when we watched the wedding scene. There she is, in a beautiful gown wearing a veil that rests softly around her, walking down the aisle of a HUGE cathedral by herself. Her shoulders are pinned back, her chin tucked down, and she steps on the beat of the procession version of “How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?” ever so gracefully. I used to tear up during this scene and practice in the way that she carried herself. I must say, I teared up again, from the memory of my childhood, when I showed that scene to Yuki.
The Mother-Daughter Percussion Ensemble, in a less sentimental moment.
After about 25 viewings, Yuki now knows a lot of the songs. She imitated Julie Andrews by putting one hand on her head and the other pointing up as she hits the high C at the end of “Do-Re-Mi” (incidentally, Julie Andrews puts her hand on her head so often in this movie that Philip suggested we make it a drinking game. Try it!). It is delightful. I then showed her scenes from Singin' In The Rain and we fake tap-danced together during “Good Morning.” Nothing finer than good old movie musical, I say. We will however, hold off on showing her Evita starring Madonna, until she understands sarcasm.
She was actually doing her rendition of "Do-Re-Mi" when I (Philip) snapped this. Then she got up and ran after Camera Baby.
In different news, I started doing “time out” with her just few weeks ago. I put down a brown mat in the kitchen and when she had a total melt down, I put her there and sat next to her and told her to have a time out, and calm down. It was amazing just how that one time taught her this is not where she wants to be. Since then she’s had a few time outs (sometimes two in a row) when she just went into a downward spiral of mess. The last time she had it, she was done crying, then I asked her to say “sorry” and give me a hug, then she said, “yaay, time out!” then when we left home shortly after, she said, “Bye time out, See you soon time out,” so I’m not sure what’s going on there.
The mat I’m using is on we used to have on the staircase landing so that good ol’ Trixie could climb without slipping during her last days. I have four identical mats. I plan to put one upstairs, one in my office, and save one for travel. She will positively FREAK when I roll out that sucker in Tokyo.
Can we bring this to Tokyo, too?
Then the potty training. We bought a potty. She sits on it for fun with her pants on, which is what we want her to do for now. We also have a cute Minnie Mouse toilet seat for the upstairs’ toilet which she likes and we sit her on that one every night before bath. We have yet to really start putting her on it for business, but she gets the concept. She understands what needs to happen there, but can’t quite make it happen for herself yet. For example, she started to poop in the tub the other night, and when I pulled her out and tried to sit her on the toilet, she panicked and arched her back and tried to wriggle off. One tiny poop ended up in the toilet, but that was it. As I was scooping the rest of her poop out of the tub and dumping it in the toilet, I told her that next time, maybe she can poop in the toilet. She seemed fascinated by the flushing and the poop disappearing. This will be our summer to fall project, I suspect. And oh, the glory of no diapers! I can’t wait until we can toss the Diaper Genies and stop writing her name on every single diaper that goes to her daycare.
Ix-nay on the Oopie-pay, can't ya?
By then, she will have moved on to the “why?” stage, which is good because I will need room in my brain to deal with that.
She began with “Wonder Pets,” then “Yo Gabba Gabba,” then we mixed in “Olivia.” “Wonder Pets” dropped off, then for a while it was just Gabba and Olivia back and forth. Then Philip found “Pocoyo” which has 7 minute episodes. Then we introduced her to “Pixar Shorts,” which is a DVD compilation of all the Pixar short films. Each of them is from 2 to 5 minutes long, and she can watch them over and over (and over and over) again until we reach the 30 minute limit.
Some days you have to leave time for wearing three pairs of legwarmers all at once.Our standards for what we’ll let her watch (and for what we’ll sit through) are
1. It must contain good/fun music (Gabba and Wonder Pets)
2. It must have good characters (Olivia)
3. It has to have a sense of humor, preferably in the way of physical comedy (Pocoyo & Pixar)
Later, when she is old enough to sit through feature films, we will care about good story telling.
And sometimes you just have to hang out and play drums.
The Mother-Daughter Percussion Ensemble, in a less sentimental moment.After about 25 viewings, Yuki now knows a lot of the songs. She imitated Julie Andrews by putting one hand on her head and the other pointing up as she hits the high C at the end of “Do-Re-Mi” (incidentally, Julie Andrews puts her hand on her head so often in this movie that Philip suggested we make it a drinking game. Try it!). It is delightful. I then showed her scenes from Singin' In The Rain and we fake tap-danced together during “Good Morning.” Nothing finer than good old movie musical, I say. We will however, hold off on showing her Evita starring Madonna, until she understands sarcasm.
She was actually doing her rendition of "Do-Re-Mi" when I (Philip) snapped this. Then she got up and ran after Camera Baby.In different news, I started doing “time out” with her just few weeks ago. I put down a brown mat in the kitchen and when she had a total melt down, I put her there and sat next to her and told her to have a time out, and calm down. It was amazing just how that one time taught her this is not where she wants to be. Since then she’s had a few time outs (sometimes two in a row) when she just went into a downward spiral of mess. The last time she had it, she was done crying, then I asked her to say “sorry” and give me a hug, then she said, “yaay, time out!” then when we left home shortly after, she said, “Bye time out, See you soon time out,” so I’m not sure what’s going on there.
The mat I’m using is on we used to have on the staircase landing so that good ol’ Trixie could climb without slipping during her last days. I have four identical mats. I plan to put one upstairs, one in my office, and save one for travel. She will positively FREAK when I roll out that sucker in Tokyo.
Can we bring this to Tokyo, too?Then the potty training. We bought a potty. She sits on it for fun with her pants on, which is what we want her to do for now. We also have a cute Minnie Mouse toilet seat for the upstairs’ toilet which she likes and we sit her on that one every night before bath. We have yet to really start putting her on it for business, but she gets the concept. She understands what needs to happen there, but can’t quite make it happen for herself yet. For example, she started to poop in the tub the other night, and when I pulled her out and tried to sit her on the toilet, she panicked and arched her back and tried to wriggle off. One tiny poop ended up in the toilet, but that was it. As I was scooping the rest of her poop out of the tub and dumping it in the toilet, I told her that next time, maybe she can poop in the toilet. She seemed fascinated by the flushing and the poop disappearing. This will be our summer to fall project, I suspect. And oh, the glory of no diapers! I can’t wait until we can toss the Diaper Genies and stop writing her name on every single diaper that goes to her daycare.
Ix-nay on the Oopie-pay, can't ya?
Comments
xoxo
gibs
Also, it's nice that Phi can admit that where he learned to walk like Julie Andrews. Wait--that wasn't Phi writing?
And, thanks for the new drinking game. I'm always on the lookout for new ones.