Procrastinet

What the Kids are Into These Days

filed under: Dadditudes

A long overdue update about the boys:

First of all, look at these likely lookin' fellas...

Max has formally decided to grow his hair out. Miyu gave it a trim (first big-boy haircut at Mudhoney, with no lesser personality than Sebastian Bach at the next chair) but he's getting good and shaggy. Charlie has yet to go under the scissors, because Procrastiwife can't part with his little curls yet, no matter how much they start to look like peyis.

Charlie's two month affair with Elmo is over and he's back to Yo Gabba Gabba - so much so that we bought exorbitantly priced tickets to the YGG live show at the Beacon in November. All for an event that he won't remember. They'd better let us take good pictures...

Charlie's vocabulary is growing but he still uses the word "Ba-ba" for about a dozen different meanings, differentiating between them all with subtle changes of inflection. It's like Mandarin. For instance:

Ba-bah - "Bo Bo", binkie, pacifier

Ba-buwh - bubbles, specifically the hippo bubble dispenser

BAH-ba - his brother, Max; also shortened to "Ba"

Bahbah - Yo Gabba Gabba; see above

Max is into marine biology, specifically sharks and whales. He has recently become enthralled with YouTube videos of prehistoric sea animals, taken from the "Walking with Dinosaurs" series. Here's one we watch a lot, which I have come to find strangely compelling:

It's kind of amazing to watch him watch this - not only does he rock out to the Drowning Pool song that underscores it, but he shouts the names of all the creatures like they're sports heros. "Dunkleosteus!" he'll shout. "Daddy! Stethocanthus!!! MEGALODON!!!"

It also amazes me that people out there collect these random things into video compilations and post them on YouTube - and they find an audience, to the tune of tens of thousands of views! Here's another of his favorites (although he strenuously contests the order of the listings):

And, finally, an obsession both boys share - subway cars. Specifically, the Red Bird subway cars. Specifically, the Red Bird subway cars being decommissioned and thrown into the ocean to make an artificial reef (at which Charlie gets very excited and shouts "WA-WA! WA-WA!"):