DadRock

Behold- The face of evil. Its name is Boohbah!

And you thought The Teletubbies were bad. Boohbah is from the same people who brought you those freaky little runts with the tvs in their bellies, and it's the most frightening and disturbing thing I've ever seen. Their web site gives you a small glimpse into this nightmare of gum-ball shaped terror, but nothing compares to the real show (make sure you've got the sound up when you start clicking around that 9-circled pit of despair, by the way). I don't know what these things are supposed to be, but I know that if I ever expect my little boy to sleep in a the dark in a room by himself, I will keep him from watching it.

On the positive side, Boohbah is meant to encourage exercise. The hellish little characters, clearly the product of some sort of hallucinogenic freakout, dance and wiggle throughout the show. I guess the kids who watch are supposed to follow along, but you'd never know this, since the Boohbah demons don't speak beyond blurps and hoo-has and whatnot. They do, however, shift their gigantic cat-like eyes back and forth in a way that I really don't trust. But the most terrifying trait they've got is the ability to retract their heads into their necks. This is a blog about kid stuff, so I'm not going to go into great detail as to what this act resembles, but let's just say the word "uncircumcised" has crossed my mind.

I mean, seriously, if you make it through the opening credit sequence, a montage of kids, sparkles, and various other LSD-inspired, brain-scrambling freakazoids with a completely atonal "singing" of the show's title repeated ad nauseam, then you're a stronger man (or woman) than I am. Plopping your kid down in front of Pink Floyd's The Wall would be less damaging.

And seriously, if this thing ever showed up at our house, I'd go after it with an ice pick:

Root Down

As of last week, our little one is eating a couple of servings of vegetables a day. We started with carrots, and yesterday he tried out sweet potatoes, which he loves. In another day or two he's going to try winter squash on for size, and then next up is peas. I hope he likes peas, cause I've got all these peas in the freezer that I need to get rid of, and outside of fried rice or curry, I don't want peas on my plate. And you can only eat so much fried rice and curry.

Anyway, there are a million convenient ways to get pureed vegetables into your kid, but I really want to encourage making your own baby food. I did a little cost comparison, and it's pretty amazing how much money there is to be saved. Let's break it down:
The discount baby site Babies Travel Lite has Gerber's 1st Foods for $1.25 for a two-pack, with each little plastic tub holding a 2.5 oz serving of veggies. One the plus side, these are straight-up vegetables (or fruits). There are no preservatives, salt, or fillers or anything. On the downside, they come in plastic tubs, and I don't have any use for adding even more plastic garbage to landfills.

On the other hand, I picked up two bags of baby carrots at Kroger yesterday for a buck each. Getting them ready for airplaning into the hangar was easy enough: I steamed them for 15 minutes or so using a big pot and a steamer basket (one of those metal collapsible things that you've probably got crammed in a cabinet somewhere), then I used a food mill to mash 'em all up. You can use a food processor or a blender if you want (it would certainly be quicker and would require less muscle work), but the food mill provides a little more textural variety. Now, I know what you're thinking; if you have to buy all this extra stuff to make the baby food, then is it really going to be cheaper in the long run? Well, yeah, it is. Plus, the food mill (Target has this model for 15 clams, which is just like the one I use, only mine didn't come w/ a carrying case, so it was probably only 10 bucks or something) is perfect for eating out. Order a side of steamed vegetables and mash 'em right there at the table.

Once the carrots were sufficiently pulverized, I used a Ziplock bag with a corner cut off like a pastry piping bag to deliver the goods to ice cube trays. Slap 'em in the freezer, then pop 'em out and into a freezer bag for longer term storage. Depending on the ice cube tray, each cube will usually be .5 oz or 1 oz (mine has .5 oz slots), so it's easy enough to measure out a serving. Once they were cooked and mashed, I ended up with about five 2.5 oz servings out of my carrots.

So let's compare across the board:
Cost*- $.40 per home-made serving vs. $.62 per store-bought serving (that's a difference of $.66 a day, or roughly 20 bucks a month).
Environmental- Home-made produced 2 Ziplock bags plus the two plastic bags the carrots came in vs. a little plastic tub for each and every serving of store-bought (and that's just the Gerber brand; I'm not sure what other brands come in.)
Effort- Home-made requires steaming, mashing, and prepping for storage vs. opening the store-bought container, but I personally enjoy making the food.
Health- You control exactly what's going into the home-made food, so you know there are no sub-standard vegetables, no preservatives, no fillers or thickeners, and nothing else that's unnecessary (it's also easy to use only organic vegetables if that's your bag, though that would certainly alter the cost analysis up there) vs.  a variety of additives depending on brand and type of food.

Also, I should point out, once enough foods have been introduced to the baby's palate, then it becomes even easier. Making mashed potatoes for dinner? Take a few spoonfuls out before you add the butter and milk, and baby gets to eat mashed potatoes right along with you. Having asparagus alongside that pork loin tonight? I'm sure the rugrat would enjoy a few spears once they've been through the food mill.

Regardless of which you choose, easy, convenient store-bought tubs or home-made veggie mush, let me offer you one slight warning about introducing vegetables to your kid's diet: get ready for some poop. And if you thought his usual green poop was weird, wait until you get the pleasure of checking out orange poop. Thanks carrots!

*This breakdown is just for the carrots, but I also grabbed two sweet potatoes that produced about the same number of servings for $2.70, or $.54 per serving, and I got a 16 oz bag of frozen peas for $.89, which could turn out to be about $.13 per serving (!!).

I Wanna Cuddle You Like an Animal

Rockabye Baby! Lullaby Renditions of Nine Inch Nails
Baby Rock Records

Baby Rock Records has released a dozen or so of these bizarre records where someone takes a popular rock artist and lullabizes their tracks. The Nine Inch Nails disc had me curious from the start, partly because Trent Reznor's lyrical themes are generally not well-suited for the nursery or sleepytime, but also because I figured that slow, quiet versions of his songs would just come out sounding creepy. Luckily, these versions are all instrumental, so my first concern was moot. The second concern was just, though, and while some of these versions are quite pretty, some are also kind of disquieting.

The first track here is "Hurt", made famous by Johnny Cash a few years back (well, made famous by Trent Reznor, I guess, but then again by Johnny Cash). This is definitely one of the prettier renditions. Much like Cash's version, the various xylophones, sousaphones, glockenspiels, and midi-keyboard-o-phones used here create a pretty broad emotional wallop. I know that baby isn't going to be getting all introspective and pensive in the crib, but still, it's kind of neat.

"Closer", on the other hand, doesn't work as well, even if it's only because I know what the chorus is supposed to be saying. You can hide it behind twinkly bells all ya want, but this is a song about doing it. But basically, for me, these work on whether or not I liked the original. "Sin" is cool, "Head Like a Hole" is all right, and "Wish" is very good, while tracks like "The Fragile" and "Piggy" are decent but nothing great. Incidentally, closing with "Something I Can Never Have" is a little questionable, because while the original version is probably the quietest and most soothing of these songs, this version is creepy as heck. Hopefully baby's frolicking down Dreamydream Avenue by this time, otherwise he might be on a non-stop to Boogeyman Lane. No lie, as I was typing this up and this song came on, one of my dogs hopped off the couch and onto the floor and started shaking.

Sin

Wish

Mickey Mouse is a jerk.

Though our son is only 6 months old, he seems to enjoy watching The Disney Channel's "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse", perhaps due to the sickeningly bright colors. It's not the best kid's show I've seen, but it's certainly not the worst (if you accidentally find yourself watching "Boohbah", I recommend clawing your eyes out and picking some repetitive song and singing it at the top of your lungs to drown out the sound). It's got the usual Disney cartoon gang of Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Pluto, Goofy, and Daisy, plus the occasional side character, like the giant from the brilliant Mickey and the Beanstalk and the very good Mickey's Christmas Carol, who happens to be the subject of this post.

In the episode question, Donald arrives at Mickey's clubhouse to inform him that he just traded his favorite chicken, the curiously named Boo-Boo Chicken, to the giant for some magic beans. When Mickey asks how they are magic, Donald says some magic words, and is quite disappointed when nothing happens. Mickey points out that Donald has been hornswaggled, and the gang sets off to get Boo-Boo Chicken back.

Only there's one problem. In the process of getting Boo-Boo Chicken back, the magic beans turn out to be magic after all; they cause the mythical beanstalk to grow. They confront the giant anyway! Donald insists, "Give me my Boo-Boo Chicken back!" Mickey tells the giant that it's Donald's favorite chicken. The giant CRIES because he loves Boo-Boo Chicken, who, it turns out, gives the best hugs. Mickey convinces the giant that he can have the beanstalk the magic beans created, and Boo-Boo Chicken returns home with Donald.

So remember, kids, if you make a trade and change your mind, it's ok to demand that your property is returned to you, even through the tears of the partner-in-trade. And, of course, this is coming from Mickey, who the show's titular clubhouse is named after, and who uses mouseketools to help his mouseketeers do whatever it is the show requires them to do. This is one egomaniacal mouse, people.

I, for one, am on the giant's side.

Oh, incidentally, They Might Be Giants do the catchy-to-the-point-of-annoying theme song and closing credits song, "Hot Dog". I loved your first kid's record, but geez guys, is this the only way you can make money now? Oh well.