{"id":3184,"date":"2009-10-23T23:37:56","date_gmt":"2009-10-24T03:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/?p=3184"},"modified":"2012-03-09T03:05:13","modified_gmt":"2012-03-09T08:05:13","slug":"backyardigans-do-you-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/23\/backyardigans-do-you-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Backyardigans? Do you know?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Until 4 year-old Robert Charles forced the introduction, I had no idea just who or what the Backyardigans were.\u00c2\u00a0But as I’ve said before, the Nana learning curve is steep.\u00c2\u00a0 I had to climb hard and learn fast.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you know who they are?\u00c2\u00a0 I’d love to hear about what you readers have had to learn\u00c2\u00a0 for your grandchildren.<\/p>\n

As I found out, Backyardigans are just one more set of peace-loving, gentle natured cartoon characters,\u00c2\u00a0 beloved by many preschoolers, including my darling grandson.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 They include a moose named Tyrone, a\u00c2\u00a0hippo named\u00c2\u00a0Tasha, Pablo the penguin, Uniqua and Austin, creatures whose\u00c2\u00a0species eludes me.\u00c2\u00a0 I was never good at science.<\/p>\n

I absolutely adore this little guy.\u00c2\u00a0 He is almost a clone of his father, my son, both physically and emotionally (translation:\u00c2\u00a0 gorgeous and challenging).<\/p>\n

After Robert goes home, I follow his long established, clandestine\u00c2\u00a0 route through my house.\u00c2\u00a0 I turn out all the back bedroom nightstand lights (on the little brass tap-tap-tap switches), turn on the daylight sensor front porch light switch,\u00c2\u00a0 reset my dishwasher to “normal wash” from\u00c2\u00a0 his preferred “pots and pans” and “air dry”\u00c2\u00a0 cycles, turn off his four favorite outdoor hoses, and once again mute the sound on my computer.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 We rarely catch him in the act but when we do he is nonplused, like a meter reader just doing his job. \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Recently, the mysterious disappearance of his sister’s\u00c2\u00a0 Princess Barbie was solved by the plumber who came to unstop the toilet in the children’s bathroom.\u00c2\u00a0 After visiting his aunt and uncle on the other side of the state, a small palm frond was removed from their toilet by another expensive plumber.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, if I am very tired, my mind wanders and I wonder just what I am going to do with Ryan Andrew.\u00c2\u00a0 But there are signs that Robert\u00c2\u00a0 is maturing, i.e.\u00c2\u00a0 we no longer have to dump the\u00c2\u00a0 dog food from the water dish after he has been at Nana’s.<\/p>\n

Much as I long to dress him in button-on-suits and lace collars, he is his own little man and he does not wear such clothes.\u00c2\u00a0 Even with the strong encouragement and approval of both his father and mother, he has turned up his little turned up nose to all such suggestions that he wear heirloom style clothing.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Robert’s\u00c2\u00a0 year round standard garb is a tee shirt, “short sleeve pants” and no shoes, except when he goes to preschool\u00c2\u00a0where both shoes and a uniform golf shirt are required.\u00c2\u00a0 The shoes go on and off in the school parking lot.<\/p>\n

Nothing makes him happier than for me to acquiesce to his perpetual plea, “Make me a shoowrt, Nana.”\u00c2\u00a0 He has oodles of character shirts, including Disney, Spiderman, Autobot, Curious George, Diego and others.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, has asks for more.\u00c2\u00a0 So I sew, he hugs and I melt.\u00c2\u00a0 I take\u00c2\u00a0 some comfort in the fact that it saves me time, as few things are quicker than embroidering a kiddie tee shirt.\u00c2\u00a0 But the real comfort is that I know Robert loves me and that he knows I love him, as evidenced by shirts and hugs and kisses.<\/p>\n

I would so love to hear from readers about what you sew for your grandchildren.\u00c2\u00a0 Am I the only Nana sewing unlovely tee shirts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Until 4 year-old Robert Charles forced the introduction, I had no idea just who or what the Backyardigans were.\u00c2\u00a0But as I’ve said before, the Nana learning curve is steep.\u00c2\u00a0 I had to climb hard and learn fast.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you know … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,35,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3184"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3184"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3238,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3184\/revisions\/3238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}