Like most 4-year-olds, Sweet Boy is a big fan of Paw Patrol, Spider-man, and Hot Wheels. But having older parents who like to explore Amazon Prime and YouTube means he also has a more eclectic taste in cartoons.
I teach music, so of course, I like to share classic musicals with the kids. We started with Mary Poppins (my favorite). By the second day of the rental, they had half of the songs memorized, and were using a British accent. We tried Chitty Chitty Bang Bang next. If you’ve never heard a 2 and 4-year-old try to sing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, you’ve seriously got to try it.
He loves classic Peanuts movies. We showed him Snoopy Come Home a few weeks before his third surgery. In the movie, Snoopy returns to his original owner, Lila, while she is sick in the hospital to help her recover. While in the hospital, my husband watched it with him on a continuous loop.
He loved the “No Dogs Allowed” song, and maybe the only kid in America who can correctly pronounce the name, Thurl Ravenscroft. I may be married to the only man in America who would teach his three-year-old son to pronounce the name, Thurl Ravenscroft. At any rate, listening to a three-year-old try to do an impression of No Dog’s Allowed might be the cutest thing in the history of the world.
We also got him a stuffed Snoopy to take with him to the hospital to comfort him. A year later, Sweet Boy still looks for Snoopy when he’s not feeling well.
Daddy’s Favorites
My husband takes great pride in choosing shows that will challenge our kids. Hubby’s favorites are often his father’s favorites, so many of them are 50 years old or more. Only the George Carlin episodes of Thomas were good enough. Sweet Boy has tried Rocky & Bullwinkle, Underdog, Danger Mouse, Tennessee Tuxedo and The Ant and the Aardvark. Honestly, I hadn’t heard of half of the cartoons he was showing him, and I’m the older one in our marriage. As Sweet Boy has gotten older, Daddy now shows him Mystery Science 3000 and select clips of Woody Allen movies (very select clips–or mommy gets cross).
Sweet Boy loves all of the older stuff, but his sense of humor often out-dates even his pre-school teachers. I hope that when he goes to school his humor will be appreciated because he really is quite clever. Maybe he can find some friends who also have an older mom and dad.
Photo by collectpeanuts 
