Let's begin with a complaint:

A few days ago my moneyed cousin dropped by with a few late baptismal gifts for the Blake. I have to say that her heart is in the right place. She'd rather be playing with Blake than dropping off presents, but time is a slippery devil and there's not always enough of it to go scooting around. So she dropped off these presents. One is a Winnie the Pooh riding plane and the other is a piano. Of sorts. They're hard to describe because they're not satisfied with being any one thing; they have to be six million things at once.

They're the kind of gee-gaw-encrusted item that has been made available by the microchip revolution: a big hunk of plastic with things that whir & play songs & beep & boop & whatnot. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an anti-plastic woman – I remember my Fisher Price record player with utmost fondness. But something about these two items was wadding up my panties. I complained to the Boy & my mom, who rolled their eyes & made the "Rocketbride is flying off the handle again" face I've come to love. I complained to Scherezade when she phoned a few days ago, and although she got a sympathetic headache when I demonstrated the sounds for her, she can't exactly help me out while she's in the Netherlands. So I've been stalking around, trying to articulate my discontent. It wasn't until today when I was listening to "Songs to Grow on for Mother and Child" by Woody Guthrie and reading the liner notes of his other CD "Nursery Days" that it all made sense.

This is going to need a diversion. I don't know if you know Woody Guthrie, or if you know folk music, or if you just stick to darkwave or Hilary Duff CD's. If you do know Woody, then you know that his recordings are all brilliantly unpolished: the mike goes on and away everyone goes. I'd be surprised if he did more than a couple takes in his life. So when he sings children's songs, there's an immediacy that you don't get in more modern, polished recordings. And there's an enthusiasm that crackles through the speakers, into the ears & out the mouth again. I defy anyone to listen to a Woody song and not want to sing along. Anyway.

In the liner notes to "Nursery Days," Woody gives a prescription to his listeners. (I have to paraphrase here; the original wording kicks my ass but if I start typing it I'm going to be here all night because not a word deserves to be left out.) He describes his "team" of families and the children who helped shape the songs, and he tells of Stackabones, a little 4 year old girl who can "out play, out sing and out dance" him any day. He tells parents that this isn't an album to put on to distract the kids while the parents use that time to get something done, rather this album is for everyone in the family to join in. Dance, sing, beat time, holler, tell stories, do it all with gusto. He asks the grown ups to take their lead from the kids. His goal, he says, isn't to make the kids be grown ups, it's to make the grown ups be like children.

And this, I found, is what gets me so wound up about these new hunks of plastic. They're big spinning distractions, lights & propellers & clicks & rattles & tiny switches with video game noises that reward you when you fit a block in the proper hole. They teach Blake that all he has to do to make music is press a button and sit quietly until it's over. There's no place for him to get into it; as soon as he presses the button, his part is over until the noise/motion stops. There's no reverberation in it. Once the battery goes, there's no fun anymore.

I think that sucks. I think that sucks hard.

On a happier note, we took an excellent walk this afternoon. We found a new secret path to the local grocery store, which made me terribly nostalgic about walking to school as a child. (It's all about the shortcuts. And the parks.) Our new route is much friendlier than the old way, as we cut through parks, school yards & neighbourhoods full of little kids. Plus, we found a friendly flock of ducks!

ducks!

the best part about hanging around babies is that they're so thrilled about stuff like this.

After we met the ducks, I ran into a little girl who came over to the stroller and started to ask me questions about Blake. First she asked me where I lived, and then she told me her name, how she broke her arm, and how she likes to play with her dolls. She then asked if she could push the stroller to the catwalk, chattering all the way. Once we were at the catwalk, she asked if she could push the stroller through the catwalk. I agreed. Once we got to the street, she asked if she could come home with me. "Nope," I said cheerfully. She was downcast at first, but then asked me if I had any pets. When I left a few minutes later, she made me promise to bring my sling to show her how I fit the baby into it.

Nice little girl, but she's gonna get snatched some day.

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- Rocketbride's adventure of 9/17/2004 10:49:00 p.m.