This has probably been covered before in many ways on this here website, but Nikki and I have noticed the completely inconsistent things we do to our poor children.\u00c2\u00a0 Let me explain.<\/p>\n
First off, to our own delight, we don’t have even the slightest hint of music taste concerns at our house.\u00c2\u00a0 Not sure if this is even a thing anymore, but our kids like the same music we do, and boy is it rather an eclectic mix.\u00c2\u00a0 At any minute, they could be singing along to Ray Charles on their iPods, or maybe rocking out to the new Daft Punk album.\u00c2\u00a0 Quinn finally got over his unrelenting Bron Yr Aur Stomp<\/a> addiction recently, while\u00c2\u00a0Cael couldn’t stop dancing to Thrift Shop, you get the idea.<\/p>\n In this very same vein, this week I realized that we are giving them the STRANGEST childhood as far as culture is concerned.\u00c2\u00a0 For starters, we introduced them to Smokey and the Bandit<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0on Monday, which was an enormous hit as you might imagine.\u00c2\u00a0 That movie is remarkably kid friendly for something made so long ago.\u00c2\u00a0 The only real problem is Jackie Gleason’s rather foul mouth, and thinly veiled racism, but most of the worst ones went right by the boys\u00c2\u00a0since he uses a particularly incomprehensible southern accent.\u00c2\u00a0 Anyway, we saw that movie, and then on Tuesday for some reason or another I got talking to them about my Grade 5 teacher at Naismith Memorial PS, Mr. Lake and how he loved poetry.\u00c2\u00a0 Which led me to find and read some favourites to the boys:<\/p>\n William Wordsworth – I wandered lonely as a cloud<\/a> We even discussed what they might mean, and enjoyed the descriptive language together.<\/p>\n Now, separately these two things are just lovely anecdotes of family time.\u00c2\u00a0 But when you realize that these two things happened within 24 hours of each other, you begin to realize that perhaps I’m not really qualified to have children.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean really.\u00c2\u00a0 What. The. Hell?\u00c2\u00a0 I’m not really giving them a solid literary background, as Paula will probably mention in a comment here, these poems are like popcorn, not really all that nutritious or filling.\u00c2\u00a0 And the movie clearly isn’t really worth all that much in terms of their development, with the possible exception that I was able to demonstrate where the Dukes of Hazzard<\/a> CAME from.\u00c2\u00a0 It also probably explains why Cael wants a CB radio installed into the Sienna.<\/p>\n So anyway, there you go.\u00c2\u00a0 The kids will be weird in that ever so unique way that makes them Vallentyne weird, and not Jones weird or Smith weird or, well you get the idea.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s your job as a parent; not only to give your DNA to your kids, but to provide your very own special mix of strange so they can go off and mix it with some poor unsuspecting person and raise their own special kind of weirdos.\u00c2\u00a0 The circle of life turns onward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This has probably been covered before in many ways on this here website, but Nikki and I have noticed the completely inconsistent things we do to our poor children.\u00c2\u00a0 Let me explain. First off, to our own delight, we don’t … Continue reading
\nRobert Frost – The Road not Taken<\/a>
\nAlfred Noyes – The Highwayman<\/a><\/p>\n