The Overstimulation of Our Children

So i spent all day Monday babysitting my nephew ben, and what a time we had. He's a good boy and really onlly cried when he wanted something like food or a clean diaper or a nap. And his mom never once had to come down and intervene because i was such a good babysitter, i knwo right. So anyways wanted i wanted to talk about though was the fact that children nowadays are so overstimulated. if it's not the hdtv it's the gamecube, and the mini hand held PS whatever it's caled and the ipod so they can have music while they play video games. I give you exibit a and b

a) Ben's walker/entertainment center. This swivel walker thing had mirros, and twisty things and a noise maker and a song machine and stuffed animals and bright colors and really anything a child could want to distract them from the world. mind you he is 5 months old. What is all of this stimulation going to do do the poor boy's imagination?


b) his jungle mat, thing. It was made to look like a baby is lying in a junge with hanging animals and mirrors again, squeezy toys, lights, and twirling butterflies. It was excess at it's best and it made me tired just lookind at all of it. excess people, excess.
but overall i did like some of ben's toys, my favorite being this wierd sea creature named "captain uniqua."
Captain uniqua is from some nickalodeon show, and she's called uniqua because she is unlike any other creature in the world. Dont' you love teh subtle acculturation into the American way of being? i do! so this captain Uniqua was a one eyed pirate and she would sing these ska/reggae songs about pirates and treasures. By the end of the day i was singing them to ben and he was laughing and laughing. I decided to take a clip of uniqua's awesome songs, but sadly my dinasaur camera can only take 5 second clips....

so basically watch the first 2 consecutively and then i will write teh lyrics later.



so this first song goes:
"If you wanna be a pirate be up on your feet
you can't be a pirate if you're sittin in your seat
throw your hands up, and stand kind of bow
and make this noise wherever you go
argh argh ARGH!
a pirate, a pirate, a pirate says
ARGH!!"



The second song she sings is all about like treasure and finding treasure and she does this awesome falsetto. Anyways she said other phrases liek "let's walk the plank" and stuff like that and was generally awesome. I kind of want a captain uniqua.

So i leave you with this last image of Ben and I, relaxing 3 bottles, 2 poops, and 3 naps later. Proving once again that i might never want my own children, but i dont' mind spending a day with other people's really cool ones.