Art Attack!

Baz likes school - a lot!! But he doesn't show it. He likes it so much that he begs us to play school at home, pretending to be the teacher. I play the "quiet Baz", which he hates to no end. I guess he doesn't like getting a dose of his own medicine.

So today, Baz came home with a brown paper bag with eyes and limbs pasted onto it and an envelope of paper sprinklers. This means that he did not do his artwork at school. Not wanting to put the materials to waste, we set out to do his artwork on his "office table" in my office. I apologize that the video clarity is not so good. I recorded this on my mobile phone.

Palusot boy

TJ, Marnie and kids Amelie and Miguel were over yesterday for a playdate. It was hilarious to see Baz, Hadrien and Amelie playing Cooking School, body-slamming each other on the big bed, and running after each other with the robot hand from Baz's astronaut suit.

Miguel - at a year old - is still too young to participate in the roughhousing, but that hasn't stopped Hadrien from trying to include him. Hadrien's always been nanggigigil with Miguel, and there was more proof of that yesterday. I wish I could have caught it on video, but if it were a screenplay it would read like this:

SCENE: INTERIOR (Baz and Hadrien's room)

Hadrien and Miguel are standing next to each other. Hadrien turns to Miguel with his gigil face, and Hadrien's hand reaches up to pat Miguel on the head.

B&H DADDY: "Wait, wait, wait ... what are you about to do to Miguel?"

HADRIEN (turns to Daddy with a look of surprise, at the same time immediately pulling his hand back): "Nothing ... I just talking to him."

B&H DADDY: "Huh? Why were you using your hand? Do you use your hand to talk to Miguel?"

HADRIEN (while making talking motions with his left hand, and in a high pitched voice): "Hewwo Miguel...".

The last time this happened, I caught Hadrien about to tap Miguel on the head with his frying pan. When I asked him what he was doing, Hadrien goes, "Nothing ... I'm hugging him!" Then he hugs Miguel.

If Miguel could talk, I'm sure he'd say, "Yeah, right!" As it is, smart Miguel has taken to looking askance at Hadrien, probably making sure they're never in the same room alone with each other. No worries, Miguel! Hadrien just wants to show how much he loves you, and what better way than with a gigil move? But you're right to watch your back (and your head).

More Video-editing Attempts

It's been awhile since I last posted. Sadly, many blog-worthy materials have slipped my memory. Perhaps these videos will make up for it.

The first video was taken around the time Hadrien turned 1, judging from the clips before and after this clip. Hadrien was such a mathematician then. He could add, subtract, multiply, divide and even extract square roots. Occasionally, we'd do this routine in the elevator or any other place where other people were within earshot and they'd be amazed.... Little did they know that all of the answers to the questions were answerable by 2. I guess Hadrien saw the humor in this routine and this is what happened.



"2" from malou.khan and Vimeo.

This next video reveals how much the two boys are alike. I mean, they not only like the same things, they even react in the same way and at the same time...



"Sabay-na-Sabay" from malou.khan and Vimeo.

Now on to the next projects... enjoy! I'm already anticipating Raffy's post on Hadrien's "talking hands" today.

Baz the Eagle

I'm reading Stephen Pressfield's new book, The Afghan Campaign. It's about Alexander the Great's military expedition into Afghanistan, following his defeat of Darius in Persia and before his campaign into India. Apparently, the Macedonians nicknamed the Afghans "Baz," so that got me thinking about the etymology of Baz's nickname.

We've always thought of it simply as a derivative short form of Baz's second name, Sebastian, and not coincidentally the nickname also of a well-regarded French director, Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge, among others). Google searches of "Baz" always pulled up Afghan references - apparently there's an Afghan warlord of the same name. But I haven't given it much thought until Pressfield's excellent book.

So after a little more searching, we find that Baz, in Pashtu, means "Eagle" (or "falcon," depending on which source you're reading). Not bad symbology for a nickname. In Pashtu it's written like this: باز

Gramps Nas visited the Khyber Pass about a year ago (the high mountain pass between Afghanistan and Pakistan), and he got the the two boys hats while there, one of which Baz is wearing in the picture above. Another Afghan connection is Malou's cousin-in-law Habib, who's married to Lally and who live in New Jersey. Malou stayed with them before and after Hadrien was born, so a big hello to cousin Ariana and Alex - Ariana is the ancient name for Afghanistan, I recall Habib saying; and Alexandra is the feminine of Alexander.

"I'm loving it!"

Some people have done a study the conclusion of which is that food in a McDonald's wrapper tastes better to kids. Apparently, "even carrots, milk and apple juice tasted better to the kids when they were wrapped in the familiar packaging of the Golden Arches." The article is here:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/diet.fitness/08/06/mcdonalds.preschoolers.ap/index.html

Seems about right. The boys love McDonald's french fries and seem to enjoy it even more when they get to eat the fries in the original packaging. In fact when eating at home Baz requests that we not put the fries into a serving dish, preferring to pick them out of the cardboard sleeve. Hadrien prefers catsup with his fries, but once or twice he's insisted that we pour him the McDonald's catsup out of the little disposable pack, not from the bottle at home.

In Vicky's blog she talks about the "consumerization" of her son Teo, and that is certainly so true. There are so many advertising, trade and commercial messages bombarding the kids, and unless you blindfold and earmuff them, it's inevitable that at least some of it - by sheer repetition - is going to get through. I'm not even talking about TV - the kids are limited to an hour a day, and usually it's an educational DVD or Nick Jr.; I mean the everyday environment. Just on the road to and from home, for example, we pass God-knows-how-many billboards. They're colorful and catchy and because we see them everyday, the kids can't help but read them. Hence Hadrien's "Goodbye, dedduwyte" (for a Nivea anti-cellulite cream) and Baz's "Wucky Me!" (Lucky Me Instant Noodles) and "Come...See Us!" (a Suzuki advertisement).

It's cute to see them do it and I admit that we sometimes encourage them to verbalize the billboard advertisements they're reading. Hey, that's how I learned to read: Dad and Mom heard me say "Alaska" as I was looking at the billboard. I wonder how many kids learned to read on EDSA?

Anyway, back to McDonald's. The boys love fries and view it as treat, so it's a once-a-week thing, meant to reward being good and obedient and not throwing any tantrums. They read the "Love ko 'to" slogan on some of the McDonald's advertisements, so now I'll point to one of them, say "McDonald's ... in the Philippines" and they'll respond with the Philippine slogan. They can do Jollibee also ("Bida ang sarap"). Meantime, "McDonald's ... in America" is "I'm loving it!" (McDonald's has apparently regionalized its advertising), but of course Hadrien's got his own version: "McDonald's ... I"m eating it!"

Cain and Abel

The two boys and I were reading a children's bible story book tonight, and Hadrien focused on the Cain and Abel story. I think what caught his attention was the illustration: Cain as a bearded, large caveman-ish looking fellow, hitting Abel - pictured as a slight, gentle staff-wielding shepherd - with a club worthy of Cro-Magnon man.

He started out by pointing each to Cain and Abel, asking, "Who dat?" I then explained that Cain and Abel were fighting because Cain was jealous of Abel. Baz asked what happened to Cain after he struck Abel ("What happened after Cain hit him?"), and I said that God had gotten very mad at Cain, and had said, "Cain! That was very very bad! You must not do that!" This prompted a discussion about where God was when He was telling Cain off, so I said, "Heaven," which then led to another discussion about where Heaven was ("all around us..."). All this time Hadrien's pointing to the pictures, asking "Who dat?" or, "Is that Keym/Abel?," in his Inquiring-Minds-Want-To-Know! voice.

But ever inquisitive Baz did indeed want to know what happened after God got angry, so I told him that He had sent Cain away. Baz said, "No. He sent Cain to the corner!" Laughter all around.

What appeared to make an impact on Hadrien was when I said that Cain and Abel were brothers. He seemed intrigued by that concept as much as he found it funny (but also probably because he was focused on sound effects - as I was telling the story I made a 'toog' sound to indicate Cain's club hitting Abel).

To Baz, on the other hand, this meant role assignation: he immediately volunteered that he was Cain and that Hadrien was Abel. I shushed him, saying that the story wasn't meant to be made fun of that way, and asked him what the lesson from the story was. His very perceptive reply: "Don't fight."

Tomorrow: the boys deconstruct the Noah's Ark story.

Hadrien's First Movie

We went to see the Disney-Pixar animation film Ratatouille today, at the EDSA Shangri-la cinema. It was Hadrien's first movie, and I'm happy to report that he sat through it (it runs 1:57) except for a 15-minute interval when he insisted on going to the bathroom. The bathroom break - which was despite the fact that he was in diapers - was probably attributable to Kuya Baz having just gone to the bathroom himself. Hadrien looked so cute sitting on the theater chair, barely keeping it from folding up. Baz, meantime, was busy with popcorn and gummi bears, although there was a part with an old lady and a shotgun (she was going after the rats) which he disliked, saying that it was "violent."

The boys are quite the Disney-Pixar fans. Baz's first movie was Cars, last year, followed by Charlotte's Web with Gramps and Gramma. At home the boys enjoy Finding Nemo and like listening to the audio versions of Monsters Inc. and Toy Story. In fact, when Baz was big on Finding Nemo, he'd refer to himself as Nemo; to Hadrien as Marlin (which came out as "Marine"); to me as Bruce the Shark, and to Mommy as Bloat. That was before his Wallace and Grommit phase, with him as Wallace and Hadrien as Grommit - Hadrien appears to have accepted that he's the sidekick.

Ratatouille is about a rat (Remy) who's inspired to become a chef. He arrives in Paris, ends up at the restaurant owned by his cooking idol, Gausteau, and meets Linguini, the restaurant's garbage boy. Remy helps Linguini pass himself off as a chef, thereby earning Linguini the ire of Skinner, Gausteau's former sous chef who now runs the place. The movie's various plot points resolve themselves with the revelation that Linguini is actually Gausteau's illegitimate and unknown son; and Remy's father forgives him for leaving the family to help a human, and with the colony works the kitchen to help Remy save the restaurant from a scathing review by the very same food critic who ruined Gausteau. The movie's title explains itself in that scene with the restaurant critic, an excellent piece of work which wouldn't be out of place in a live action film.

Like any good fable, there's a moral: you can be anything you set out to be, as in this case when Remy pursues his calling to become a chef. You can also read it as, "Become the change you want to see" (Remy's father believes humans and rats will never get along); or "Give credit where credit is due" (when Linguini becomes famous, he has trouble admitting that Remy is behind his rise as a chef).

Good plot and excellent animation - Baz, Hadrien and I each give it a "thumbs up." Baz liked it because it had to do with cooking. Hadrien liked it because now he gets to call himself "Hadatouille"- I swear, he thought this name up himself.

Et tu, Elmo?

Today we learned about a recall issued by Mattel for certain Fisher-Price toys, including Sesame Street and Dora The Explorer licensed toys. Apparently, one of Mattel's Chinese suppliers had applied decorative paint to the toys that "contained excessive amounts of lead."

A list of the toys affected by the recall, and a news article about it, is here: http://www.smdailyjournal.com/article_preview.php?id=78607

Unfortunately we had one of them: Silly Parts Talking Elmo. So this afternoon, he became Wrapped In A Bag And Thrown Away Elmo. I explained to the boys that I had to dispose of Elmo because he had bad paint on him, and they didn't seem to mind. Luckily, I don't recall them ever biting into the toy, as this thing's body is entirely plastic and covered by that leaded paint.

Doing an inventory of all the other plastic/painted toys, it struck me that almost all of them are "Made in China." The boys are big Sesame Street and Dora fans, so there were other toys to go through and compare to Mattel's list.

Ironically, I was reading an article in Fortune magazine a couple of weeks ago about how Mattel is the model for how to do manufacturing in China. By all accounts they're very careful about how they choose their suppliers, as well as their quality controls, so if something like this got past them, what about those less stringent toy manufacturers? Bearing that in mind, Singing Nemo joined Elmo in the disposal bag: this Nemo was by some Chinese-sounding company, hence my refusal to give its plastic orange and white painted body the benefit of lead-free doubt. I'm not being a Mattel apologist here, nor am I exercising a reflex prejudice against Chinese goods. But the litigation-happy environment in the United States has made American companies (rightly) paranoid about safety concerns, something that can't yet be said about those manufacturing on the cheap out there in Guanghzou.

Then again maybe I threw Singing Nemo away because it was just so damn annoying. That toy did one snippet of a song in a high pitched yet pinched, nasal voice, all the while rotating in circles on the floor (it had wheels).

Maybe all this is just an overreaction, and that 0.06% lead content in paint (the standard used by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission) isn't really harmful. Certainly those metal painted toys from our childhood was in the day before all this lead paint/sharp edges/small parts/Not Safe For Children Below 3 consciousness. But as a parent there's no way you take a chance on any of this; so God help Mattel and that Chinese paint supplier, if I ever get them in a room with me.