Hypothesis

Man, I never update this blog. I keep meaning to record the glorious things my kid says, and then I don’t, and then updating this blog becomes a MOUNTAIN I don’t want to climb, and so here are a couple of things about the bear, in no order.

He has started to watch the PBS Kids show DINOSAUR TRAIN on Netflix. The format of the show is that a bunch of young dinosaurs take the titular Dinosaur Train from era to era, meeting various other types of dinosaurs and having very mild adventures.

Dinosaur Train is a new addition to the tiny roster of Allowable Shows. In general, we are pretty concerned about letting him watch TV – not especially, I am ashamed to admit, because we are doing some kind of TV-free thing, but more because of how we are worried about people trying to sell him fruit snacks with characters he recognizes on the packaging. (And not even because of high-mindedness, but because I have seen people fight with their kids about Dora The Explorer fruit snacks, and I AM A COWARD.)

And also because most kid TV is super loud and horrible and kind of makes me want to die. Shows he has seen so far are pretty limited, and include Shawn the Sheep and its spin-off series Timmy Time (dialog-free Claymation from the people who make Wallace and Gromit), some Sesame Street (which he doesn’t like very much) and The Busytown Mysteries, a weird Canadian series based on the Richard Scarry books, wherein Huckle Cat and his friends solve extremely – EXTREMELY – mild mysteries. (Most of them are like “The mystery of someone who put his hat in an only slightly unusual location.”)

Anyway, Dinosaur Train. The bear really only likes one particular episode, wherein the dinosaur kids find a feather, and solve THE MYSTERY (“mystery”) of the feather’s origin. Spoiler: it’s from a velociraptor.

One of the things I find kind of charming about the show is that it’s attempting to cram science down the tiny throats of its viewers. For instance, the kids keep saying “I have a hypothesis!” about the minor dinosaur-related mystery at hand, and then another kid will say “You mean an idea you can test?” and then they try to test it, etc.

I thought that was pretty clever. And when a couple of days ago, walking back inside from the car, the bear told me that he had a hypothesis, I was like YES! MY CHILD IS A GENIUS! And so I said “You mean an idea you can test?”

And he looked at me like I was a moron and said “No.” and so I said “What is a hypothesis, exactly?”

And he said “A hypothesis is an animal that people have. It’s about this big.” (holding his hand three feet off the ground.)

Other good things he has said recently:

While describing his plan for the rest of the day: “First we will go to the book store. Then we will come home and have lunch. Then we will go to the library. (Which he, to my delight, pronounces “Lie-blelly.” “We have to ask the lie-blellian.”) Then we will take a nap. Then when I wake up, it will be almost time for Daddy to come home! And then I will go live on a farm.”

While in the bath, thoughtfully:

“Do boobies have chemicals in them?”

“What are chemicals?”

“Chemicals are special things that are good for people to eat.”

During a diaper change: “Are penises tubes?” And when I agreed that they were: “Are boobies tubes for milk?”

(He still nurses, so a lot of his better/stranger comments have to do with his many, many thoughts about nursing.)