Wiggles Abound

I didn't really know about The Wiggles until the boys discovered them - I think at more than one babysitter's house. One babysitter's sons had Wiggles dolls that look like one of those metric new-and-improved containers that doesn't quite match anything you 've known up until now - long - a foot and a half maybe - but extremely skinny (appropriately) figures of androgynous Australian men in what look like Star Trek uniforms, with Beatles haircuts circa 1971.

Of course, Amy looked high and low for dolls as wonderful as these, and through the bounty of EBay, she found some like them - only somewhat smaller (but still disproportional, like he-barbies) and - even better - they sing and talk when you squeeze them. And now they sing to us almost every day, not only when you squeeze them, but when you step on them at 2:00 a.m., etc. But the really warped thing is that, even though I wouldn't have gone near these guys before The Lads discovered them (especially since their show reminds me of The-Monkees-Meet-Sabado-Gigante), in some weird way, I have come to love these gangly little cloth-and-plastic men who serenade us, talk to us, and follow the boys pretty-much everywhere they go. Because now when I hear their little songlets that come with each squeeze, I think about the boys.

One of the wonderful things about them is their new names. Because, when you squeeze Jeff, he says what sounds like - to an American - "Oh, hoy! Moy nime is Jiff!" - Ian believes that the doll's name really is "Jiff", and he calls him that. Likewise, Murray has been renamed "Mary", in Daniel's parlance - and you gotta love a guy named Mary. Then there's "Dolphie the Dinosaur" - as both boys call them. It took me some time to find out that, in Officialdom, at least, the name is actually "Dorothy the Dinosaur". Ian developed a game that consists of singing "Dolphie the Dinosaur" over and over again (as well as "Wags the Dog"), while gently waving the doll in question back and forth in time to the song.

I have also developed a taste for their songs - even though you only hear about 12 seconds of song-snippet with each squeeze (each doll comes with a spoken self-identification and two song-bytes). One time, we got hold of one of the Wiggles' music videos, and even though we had (adult) company, I couldn't help but tune into the video, because it was my first opportunity to hear, all the way through, each of the songs for which I had long ago mastered the dolls' token recitations. They were real songs!! And they were a bit catchy - mostly Carribeanesque.

The Wiggles make us work. I get to run out in the pouring rain, at night, to collect Wiggles from the mini-van for boys who want to hold them here and now. I get to search - after lights out - for Wiggles that have somehow slipped between the boys' sheets, or otherwise gotten lost in the dark. Then there's Daniel's truly Barbie-like ritual of taking off their shiny little postmodern acrylic trekkie-shirts, exposing a very dull white surface underneath, and dragging doll-and-accoutrement over for re-vesting (he can't do it himself). We don't know why he likes to undress them and have us dress them, but he does. Daniel also reported their lack of anatomy - not disapprovingly, just factually (and precisely). Our life is very much focused around these men and their quirky animal friends.

Okay. I'm jealous of them.

In fact, I have a new routine, where I inform the boys that I, myself, am a Wiggle. In fact, I have taken *each* of the Wiggles' song-particles and inserted the word "Daddy" into them - such as "Play your guitar, Daddy," "Wake up, Daddy," and, most bluntly, "Daddy is a Wiggle." It might not suprise you to learn that the boys don't like that. They always put me right in my place. "No, Daddy, you're not a Wiggle."

Maybe not. But they're a big part of my life.