We’re almost to the end of my year of entertaining Wednesday guest bloggers.
This week’s blogger is Kerry Whiteley. Kerry is a stay at home mother of two children who is trying to figure the whole mothering thing out. She works part-time from home, does freelance writing, and has dreams of being a published author but spends the majority of her non-mothering time obsessing over her next blog post. She finds the funniest part about parenting is how contradicting we can be to ourselves and enjoys a good laugh at the things she held so dear at one point of mothering and how it drastically changes in one year or less. While she feels overwhelmed and guilty at times, she is always on the brink of bliss. You can read her blog at Winding Road.
I have always been very particular about the various influences in my children’s lives. Starting at an early age with my daughter, I would only let her watch Baby Einstein videos or a few select shows on Nick, Jr. while supervised with an adult. I eased up over the years and allowed her to watch a show by herself. Then I went further and allowed a Barbie movie and even further, a Barbie movie without monitoring.
I’m living on the wild side these days.
It began with the addition of the minivan to our family shortly before my son’s birth. This purchase opened a Pandora’s Box of parental lunacy into dimensions I swore I would never go, specifically into Elmo-land. We denied our daughter Elmo and Barney and I still stand firm on our distance from the purple dinosaur.
As it turns out, my son loves Elmo and not surprisingly, my daughter does too. There is something quite infectious about the little red guy with the high pitched voice, which doesn’t irritate me as much as I anticipated. My husband and I have found ourselves giggling along with our children during Elmo’s Potty Time video and had a fun time at Sesame Street Live recently. Needless to say, my son has acquired a good bit of Elmo paraphernalia including the Elmo dress and play doll, Elmo singing toy, Elmo backpack, Elmo t-shirt, Elmo & friends figurines, Elmo potty and the now infamous Elmo bathtub mat.
One night I was bathing my son and trying to quickly finish up so that I could bathe my daughter, get the kids to bed and enjoy my nightly glass of red wine. The water was draining and I was putting the bath toys away. My son was pointing to each Elmo on the bathmat saying “ball” because the mat is patterned with multiple Elmos holding beach balls. He’d say, “Elmo…ball” over and over pointing his little finger at each one. Finally, ready to move on from the repetition, I said something I never imagined coming out of my mouth:
The imagery of this statement had me giggling a good while and shook me out of my hurry to move on to the next thing. Elmo is technically a boy, right? Still, I just can’t imagine him with balls or even metaphorical “balls”… he doesn’t seem to be too much of a tough guy. But then again, Elmo is quite comfortable with his sensitivity and laughs unabashedly. He is very honest with himself and others as well as very loving evidenced by singing “Elmo loves you” multiple times per day in our household.
Perhaps our definition of tough should be revamped because the world really does need more sensitive boys. I can only hope that as my son learns and grows that he will have balls like Elmo.
YOUR TURN:
Who’s your favourite Sesame Street or Muppets character?
And the real reason they call Big Bird “Big” has nothing to do with his height.
haha! yes, Big Bird is quite the man too 😉
Reblogged this on Winding Road and commented:
I am super excited to be guest posted on Leanne Shirtliffe~Ironic Mom’s blog today! She is the author of Don’t Lick the Minivan. I read her book last spring and it is hysterical! I’m honored to be her guest post today. Thank you again Leanne!
So hilarious. Are you taking any more guest bloggers or are the slots already filled for the rest of the year? I would love you write something for you.
Oh, Mr. Noodle, what a guy. And his brother, Mr. Noodle.
I bet Elmo could hold his own in a street fight.
Mr. Noodle would be in big trouble without Elmo, the way he bumbles around…my lil guy is not impressed. He furiously shakes his head “no” whenever Mr.Noodle comes on the screen 😉
My sons would always just sadly shake their heads at Mr. Noodle, like disappointed parents, then sigh and say, “Oh, Mr. Noodle.”
I too was pleasantly surprised at how un-annoying Elmo was!
it was a pleasant surprise. I think I was also ready for a break from all the Baby Einstein and Wonder Pets 😉
Mr. Noodle brushing his teeth is my favourite Elmo moment. But seriously, he’s a grown up. Get it together, Mr. Noodle.
seriously, even the kiddos find him a bit ridiculous 😉
LOL! Now that’s funny! I will admit that I was resistant to the purple dinosaur, but then found him to be less obnoxious than Elmo – he taught great lessons and didn’t have the annoyingly squeaky voice! Mr. T graduated from Elmo to Barney quickly and I don’t regret it at all! 🙂
Yes, Barney certainly is a kind fellow. I was a nanny in my early 20’s and od-ed on Barney then, otherwise, I might have been willing to give him a try.
That I can totally understand!
Haven’t a clue what their names are, but I like the trumpet-shaped guys who do the “Doo doo de doo doo” behind the ‘Mahna mahna” dude.
Plus the “Nope nope nope nope” guy who answers the telephone ring.
the martians..they’re funny. I just pulled up a youtube video and my son thinks they’re pretty funny too 🙂
Congratulations, Kerry! Great guest spot! 🙂
thanks 🙂
Thanks for the laugh Kerry!
Thanks for reading! 🙂
Just wait til your little guy starts chanting “Elmo has balls!” over and over again when you’re at the mall, or a restaurant. 😉
Now that I’d love to be a fly on the wall for!
haha! oh yeah, you never know what will come out of their little mouths. I usually just blame their dad 🙂
Ohh wel love Elmo! But I have to admit, we allow the purple guy in our house 😉
We all have to put up with a certain level of annoying kid shows and then we all have to draw our line somewhere. I won’t do Barney or Caillou but know lots of die-hards on both shows. I can’t do Wonder Pets anymore, at first I thought they were cute but after the millionth episode, I can’t take Ming Ming’s voice anymore! My daughter is pretty stuck on Doc McStuffins and Sofia the First these days and my son only watches Elmo shows, usually in the car. I’ve only watched the shows a few times but have the audio memorized of just about all of them 😉
Hahahaha we stopped watching Wonder Pets too, it worked with my son before but the little girl can’t be fooled!
The next step is The Wiggles, an experiencing that will open up all kinds of lunacy for you as a parent. Try dealing with “Captain Feathersword”… yeah.
Ha!! oh yes, I forgot about them. I watched a lot of The Wiggles pre-kids with my niece but never found them on tv once I had my own kids. I thought they were pretty good but maybe that is because I watched it only in small doses.:)
Oh no, the Wiggles are/were very entertaining. They were one of the shows I watched with my kids that did not fit the small dose category. I always wondered if Jeff was on drugs. Why else did they always need to be waking him up?
Good point! I enjoy watching most of the shows my kids like. Thankfully, there are only a few I can’t and with dvr they are never the wiser 🙂
We love everybody on the Street at our place!
Its a pretty cool street, I like them all too now that I’ve allowed them into our house 😉
I think your son is going to be fine.
He comes from good stock.
Well that is a very nice thing to say! Thank you 🙂
By now I have a list of ones I simply can’t watch having seen them so many times with so many kids. But the one I still love is a Sesame Street video called, ‘Sing Yourself Silly’. It rocks! 🙂
And yup, I’m pretty sure your wee one will announce at some point that Elmo does indeed have balls. Great post, Kerry. Made me smile and remember. 🙂 x
Thank you my dear 😉 I am sure he will…kinda hope he does, that’d be pretty funny!
My 3 boys liked the guy in the trashcan the best, next to Big Bird.
I like Oscar the Grouch too, and his little worm friend. My son’s favorite is Cookie Monster 🙂 Thanks for reading and re-blogging!
Reblogged this on quirkywritingcorner and commented:
It’s really funny how innocent words just come out all wrong!
I love Elmo! I thinks he’s cute and funny and just so open, for lack of a better description. And I’m 28 :p
Elmo is so cute! I judged him years ago before giving him a solid chance 🙂
Okay…so I’m going to go there: If Elmo ever had blue balls, would they really be purple?
Sorry. I’m so, so sorry 🙂
I laughed so hard!:) One of my new favorite bloggers:)