Bright Starts Around We Go Show

You know when you hear some cheezoid song on the radio and for hours you can't seem to get it out of your head? That's kinda like I am now only I'm not hearing a song. I'm hearing the voices of the characters in my kid's favorite toy. I'm talking about the Bright Starts Around We Go Activity Center. If you've never seen one of these things (and if you don't have children under the age of two I can't imagine why you would), it's a pretty jazzy toy.

I guess you could say it's an activity table with a wheeled seat attached so the kid can scoot around to the different diversions. Meryl's favorite seems to be the five piano-like keys that make different sounds depending on what setting she has them on. Sure, she can play do re mi fa so and every possible combination thereof, but with the flip of a switch the friendly cartoon characters on the keys pipe up and either play a tune or say some catchy phrase.

There's a monkey, an elephant, a lion, a giraffe and a zebra, and they all play different styles of music. Furthermore they also have very distinct personalities and voices. The monkey has a Spanish or maybe an Argentinian accent. Oddly enough he's sporting a headdress kinda like Carmen Miranda only his is made up of blue balls. Blueberries maybe? I don't know. Anyway. He plays a salsa tune and when you flip the page of the music book that changes the settings, he says either I am a monkey; I love to swing from my tail, I am purple or I love to dance the salsa.

The elephant is orange and plays some New Orleans style jazz music. In addition to announcing his species, something they all do, he says I am orange and I have big ears.

The lion is yellow and he plays classical piano and sings Figaro figaro figaro.. His personality is probably the most distinct because he's clearly nelly. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm just saying he's nelly. You can tell he's also kinda stuck on himself because before he announces his color he clears his throat like he's calling for your attention in a way the other animals don't. Also when he says I am a lion; I have a mane he makes it sound like he's better than the other animals because they don't have additional fur framing their faces the way he does. I don't know if he thinks his musical genre is more sophisticated than the others or if he just has king-of-the-jungle syndrome or what but there's definitely an air of superiority about him.

The giraffe is green. Go figure. Though I suppose this is no more out of the ordinary than a purple monkey or an orange elphant, huh? His accent is clearly Caribbean. I don't know if he's supposed to be Jamaican or a Trini or what but he's from somewhere in the West Indies. He plays reggae music complete with steel drums and says I have a loooong neck and I am a jammin' giraffe, Mon.

The blue zebra brings up the rear and he has a sort of thug quality about him. I don't just mean he has an urban dialect; I mean he comes across as militaristic or possibly just angry at The Man. He seems happy enough when he says I'm a hip hoppin' zebra, but when you press him again and he says I have stripes, it just sounds like he's annoyed that he had to deliver his line. Sure, his words say I have stripes but his tone says something more like Why don't you leave me alone and go bother that friend of Dorothy two doors down? Somehow though, I just picture him being the voice of reason. A protagonist caught up in the midst of animalia oblivion.

When Meryl bangs on the keys I hear them say these things over and over and over to the point that I think I'm hearing them when I'm not really hearing them anymore. Also, when my mind races I imagine them having conversations with each other kinda like the're acting out their own version of Toy Story. A scene might go something like this:

Setting: Backstage at the Bright Starts Round we Go

Lion: (clearing his throat as he runs his fingers through his mane) I am a lion. I have a mane.
Zebra: I don't know about these other people up in here but I for one am sick of your tired ass going on and on about your mane.
Lion: Figaro! Figaro! Figaro!
Elephant: Ha! I have big ears.
Zebra: (turning to Elephant) Let me ask you something. Why when Twinkle Toes and I are having a conversation do you have to butt in and go and announce something so nebulous as the fact that you have big ears? If we can see his mane, we can see your big ears. Hell, the Weebles down the street at Playskool can see your big ears.
Monkey: I am a monkey. I love to swing from my tail.
Lion: (oblivious to the conversation) I am yellow.
Zebra: (turning to Monkey) And let me guess, you're purple, right?
Monkey: I love to dance the salsa.
Zebra: We know. And swing from your tail. Why don't you go back to whatever jungle you came from? We have enough problems here with you people takin' all our jobs.
Giraffe: (playing a calipso beat on his steel drums) I am blue.
Lion: Figaro! Figaro! Figaro!
Zebra: (turning to Giraffe) What I said to monkey goes double for you. Who do you think you are anyway banging on that thing in here while some of us are trying to get ready for a show?
Giraffe: I am a jammin' giraffe, Mon.
Zebra: High on ganja is more like it.
Monkey: I am purple.
Elephant: Ha! I am orange.
Monkey: I love to swing from my tail.
Lion: (clearing his throat) I am yellow.
Zebra: Y'all can all just shut up.
Giraffe: I am blue.
Monkey: I love to dance the salsa.
Elephant: Ha! I have big ears.
Zebra: Can a zebra get a little respect around here? I said shut up.
Elephant: Ha! I am orange.
Giraffe: I am a jammin' giraffe, Mon.
Monkey: I am purple.
Zebra: (standing on his chair) SHUT UP!!!!!

(there is a brief moment of silence while all the animals fidget nervously at their dressing tables.)

Lion: (clearing his throat) I am yellow.

Shit happens

Why after my daughter comes down with her first urinary tract infection can we no longer smell her dirty diapers? Granted, I've known my shit didn't stink for years now, but when you've got a baby in diapers, especially a girl, you kinda appreciate it when you can smell the need for a diaper change. Sadly however in her time of need, I am constantly being surprised by a seemingly wet diaper that upon further inspection calls for the institutional sized box of wipes.

The funny thing is that until recently ever since we brought Meryl home from the hospital, her gas alone would cause paint to peel off the walls. My wife and I argue over who she takes after when it comes to this, but the fact is for months now we've been peeking into many a noxious diaper only to find it empty save a green cloud of escaping poisonous gas. Now that she's come down with a urinary tract indection, something we've identified she contracted from her craptacular diapers, our olfactory senses fail us. Or more accurately her shit don't stink.

A brief apology is in order for those who came to cocktailswithkevin.com today with the hopes of finding the meaning of life or the secret to world peace. Yes, I realize that my usual antics have over the past few posts been usurped by anecdotes on fatherhood. I promise to get back to my regularly scheduled rants soon, but someone is taking up quite a bit of my life lately and I feel the need to share. As my urologist informed me once he learned my wife had given birth, having kids really does change you. This he said after charging me $40 to finger my ass and tell me to lose weight, but that's another story.

Before having a kid, when I would express hesitancy over changing a dirty diaper, women would say You'll see, it's different when it's your own kid. You know what? These women were lying. I no more want to change my daughter's crap-filled diaper than I would Ronald McDonald's or Rush Limbaugh's. Well, considering what Ronald McDonald must eat, his diaper is probably worse. After all, I hear oxycontin is constipating. Anyway, I digress.

Garbage in our house has three degrees of separation. Closest to us are the trash cans in the kitchen, Meryl's room and the bathrooms. For large packaging and overly fragrant food waste, there's the trash bag in our garage. And outside the garage is our trash can which we reserve mainly for trash day but also visit when there's something so abhorrent that we can't stomach it being anywhere inside our home. Usually this is reserved for week-old cat litter and the severed body parts of fat-bottomed girls who won't put the lotion in the basket.

Crap-filled diapers are some of the few things that actually bypass the first two degrees of garbage and go straight outside into the big trash can. Come to think of it, if I suspected our trash man was within five blocks of our house when the crap filling occurred, I would probably run down the street holding the diaper as far away from my nose as I could with the hopes of chucking the thing directly in the back of his truck. I wouldn't even care if it was our garbage man really. Any garbage truck would do so long as he was driving away from my home.

Making matters worse is the antibiotic she's on. Not only does amoxicillin cause her to experience regularity on an irregularly frequent basis, it also makes her dumps the consistency of mashed potatoes. Instant. Mashed. Potatoes. Regardless of what goes in whether it be mango, peas, prunes or what have you, it turns into a greenish brown yuck that sometimes isn't even content to confine itself to her diaper. Today was one of those instances.

I picked her up and felt something spongy on her back so I started messing with it and squishing it. I thought maybe it was a sock or something stuck in her p.j.'s. Almost instantly I started to see a stain soak through her pyjamas where my fingers were. Then it dawned on me. I was fondling her moist dung through her clothes. Gross! I cannot possibly convey to you how disgusting these crap diapers are. Maybe I'm a poop phobe.

I know there are mothers out there who take pleasure in talking about their kids' bowel movements. I do not understand this, but you can click here and find the blog of one of my favorites. My wife is another one who likes getting the poop report. I've started emailing it to her or leaving it on her voice mail at work if I can't get in touch with her directly. It's basically just the shart chart for the day. Again gross! I can't believe I'm even typing this.

I have read Everyone Poops written by . . . ummm . . . hold on, let me ask my librarian wife . . . some Japanese person she says. Anyway, I know this is a normal function and all, but somehow discussing it after having had to come into close contact with it is bothersome.

Gone are the days when dads never had to change diapers. I understand that, and as I'm the one usually at home with her during the day it's pretty much a responsibility I can't shuck unless I want to try knocking on my neighbor's door and see if they'll oblige.

Wait a minute.

Maybe that's not a bad idea. The neighbors don't speak English, but I'm sure with the right body language and Meryl providing the visuals I could get the message across. I'll let you know how that goes.

Baby walkers take off eh

Each time I take my baby to the doctor, a nurse runs through a slew of questions once we get into the examination room. I'm not talking about general run-of-the-mill questions an adult hears when going to the doctor like What hurts? or Would you please stop stealing our copies of Architectural Digest? These questions are more like an interrogation, the purpose of which, I fear, is to determine how my wife and I are doing as parents. If we answer enough questions correctly, our kid goes home with a sticker that says "Dr. So-and-So loves me"; if not our kid goes home with a social worker.

Sure, they always start out with the more banal questions like whether or not our baby is sleeping through the night, how many wet diapers she might have during the day and so forth, but eventually the questions get hairier. They ask things like whether or not she attends daycare, whether we have pets in the home and if so what kinds, and are there firearms in the home. This last one gets me because although a swimming pool poses a far greater risk of death than a firearm, we've yet to be asked whether or not we have a pool.

On this last visit we were asked a new question though, i.e. whether or not our daughter uses a baby walker. She doesn't, but the question threw me for a loop nonetheless. I remember babywalkers, not from my own use of them, but when I worked at the world's biggest toy store in my youth we sold them. It was basically a suspended vinyl seat with a plastic tray in front that rolled around as baby was learning to walk. The more upscale versions had little spinny things on the tray to keep baby entertained during those long stretches when he got stuck on an unwielding carpet strip or kitty's tail. After only a week's worth of use, the tray bore stains from upturned sippy cups and the seat was encrusted with secondhand Cheerios. Ah, the joys of babyhood.

When we got home that day (yes, apparently we answered enough questions correctly to take our kid home unescorted once again) I started looking up the straight dope on baby walkers. Indeed, the American Academy of Pediatrics states very clearly on their site "Throw away your baby walker."

When I ran across something that suggested they were now illegal in Canada, I looked that up too. Sure enough, according to the official website for Toronto, our neighbors to the north are advised they cannot buy, sell or give away baby walkers. A further directive goes on to say, "If you have a baby walker, take it apart and put it in the garbage."

I suppose another option for unscrupulous Canucks would be to sneak them down across the border and sell them to American parents not in the know. Or since they're technically not illegal here in the U.S. but only discouraged, maybe shady Canadians can only sell them on the black market in their own country. Can't you just see someone peddling them out of the back of a van alongside human kidneys and U.S.-bought cigarettes? A red-coated mountie would gallop up alongside and shout, "See here, you hoser, you can't be selling those here, eh!"

I did locate an article on the Health Canada website that outlines walker restrictions in several countries. The article's written en français but I think I can translate the highlights for the benefit of the non-francophone reader.

Canada - Walkers are made illegal as of some time in 2004. You can't even bring them into the country legally.

US - Doctors advise against their use, but you can still get one off Amazon.com if you can't find it in your local baby store. The Consumer Products Safety Commission suggests walkers only be used while baby is exposed to countless hours of television viewing.

New Zealand - Walkers are legal in kiwi country but parents are advised to keep an eye on baby and make sure he sticks to clean smooth floors and avoids running into hot surfaces like stoves and barbies.

Australia - Again, still legal to sell but must have caution labels on the packaging. Aussies are encouraged to closely monitor baby's activity in a walker when playing near stairs , hot surfaces or dingos.

France - French doctors don't recommend walkers any more than American doctors do, but in a spirit of anti-American sentiment tour operators hand them out at certain tourist destinations such as the Arc de Triomphe, on top of Notre Dame and on the third level of the Eiffel Tower.

Interestingly enough, in Canadian French a baby walker is referred to as a marchette while in French French it's called a trotteur or more colloquially a youpala. Go figure.

Kazakhstan: As if these people weren't already facing enough troubles as a result of this latest Borat movie, it seems as though they also are doomed to danger due to their lackadaisical attitude toward walker safety. While I wasn't able to find any printed information about the use of walkers in Kazakhstan (not that I could read it if I did), I was able to find a photo on the innerweb that depicts a baby in the former soviet bloc country in a walker. Don't believe me? Click here.

Tonga - Sadly not in the article mentioned or anywhere else on the internet was I able to find any pertinent information on the use of baby walkers in the kingdom of Tonga. Is it any wonder their population is declining?

In light of all this, I can't see us buying Meryl a walker even if they are still legal in the United States. I suffer enough parental guilt thanks to the slew of baby guides and unsolicted advice I get from well-meaning strangers in the grocery store. I don't want to add to my burden. I'm sure she'll learn to walk one of these days, and in the meantime she'll just have to be happy sitting on the floor chewing on carinogen-filled plush toys while Daddy wrestles with the frayed Christmas tree lights.