On Saturday mornings, as a special treat (read: when mommy needs 5 more minutes of sleep or wants to finish an entire cup of coffee or when she wants Zee to finish his oatmeal with wheat germ and black strap molasses), Zee is treated to some time with the Teletubbies. He is instantly glued to the television, mouth agape, drool soaking the front of his blue bear pjs. He tends to watch in silence with random giggles here and there. One day as he watched, each Teletubbie took turns wearing a skirt and dancing. One by one they put the skirt on and did their 'solo' until it was "Dipsy's" turn. The announcer came on and said "Then it was Dipsy's turn to wear the skirt." Now, the Teletubbies faces don't move or make expressions so most of their emotions are communicated through physical actions and tone of voice. When Dipsy heard it was 'his' turn to wear the skirt he looked into the camera, paused and then said "uh-oh" followed by "run away" as he turned and darted off through the rolling green hills of Teletubbie land. He ran and Lala chased him with the skirt. At the sight of this, my usually chipper son, started crying. Tears rolled down his cheeks and he shrieked as if to say "no! don't make him wear the skirt!" That's silly, I thought, he doesn't understand what's going on. He's amused by the colors and gestures and messy pink tubbie custard but he's not 'getting it'. He must have gas or be bored or hungry or something. So, I picked him up and fed him or rocked him or something to quiet him and turned off the TV (I was nearly done with my coffee anyway).
The next time we played the DVD he saw the same sketch and just as he had done before, he started crying when he saw Dipsy being forced to wear a skirt and dance around for our viewing pleasure. Lala finally caught Dipsy and somehow coaxed him to wear the skirt and he danced around in the skirt for a minute, seemingly happily, until he had had enough and took the skirt off again. Zee cried through the whole thing. I told Zee, it's ok, Dipsy is happy wearing the skirt afterall, but Zee wasn't buying it. We had to turn it off again.
Is our little boy an emotionally intelligent genius? Is he kind and compassionate and empathetic? Of course! But then, I may be a bit biased....;)
The next time we played the DVD he saw the same sketch and just as he had done before, he started crying when he saw Dipsy being forced to wear a skirt and dance around for our viewing pleasure. Lala finally caught Dipsy and somehow coaxed him to wear the skirt and he danced around in the skirt for a minute, seemingly happily, until he had had enough and took the skirt off again. Zee cried through the whole thing. I told Zee, it's ok, Dipsy is happy wearing the skirt afterall, but Zee wasn't buying it. We had to turn it off again.
Is our little boy an emotionally intelligent genius? Is he kind and compassionate and empathetic? Of course! But then, I may be a bit biased....;)
1 comment:
no, it's just at that moment he realizes what complete idiots the Teletubbies are.
Seriously? Don't y'all have Dora?
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