Educating Daddy

Ian got off the school bus today with a very reasonable request, spelling, where necessary, to talk over the heads of three- and five-year-olds (with limited success):

"Daddy, can you make me a grilled cheese sandwich, and meanwhile I'll entertain Daniel and Madeleine with T-E-L-I-V-I-S-O-I-N?"

I was very impressed that his proposal involved not any kind of self-indulgence, but rather the selfless act of entertaining the younger set. Meanwhile, because he knows his parents are hyper-dorky, there was no sense in trying to watch anything but "Mr. Wizard" - an exciting series, now available on DVD, dating back to circa 1959, where a child who looks like Beaver Cleaver explores the wonderful world of science with a nasal, middle-aged scientist-sage, complete with Air Force haircut on a slightly balding scalp and a long, sober neck-tie.

[Remember those miserable nerd-youth from our own childhood whose awful parents only let them watch Masterpiece Theater, Nova and few other PBS hits? Well, we have become The Problem...]

To reinforce the campaign, as I was preparing Ian's gluten-free, dairy-free grilled "cheese" in the toaster oven, Ian asked me how many ways there are to make electricity, and he started enumerating: "Light... heat... what else...?" As far as I knew, there was just wall-plug and battery...

When Ian saw that I didn't know all six (or seven?) ways of generating electricity, he pointed out, ever so spontaneously, "Well, there's only one way to find out!!!" It turned out that the one way to find out was actually by watching Mr. Wizard.

Needless to say, the Mr. Wizard Lobby prevailed - proof that watching DVD's makes children smarter than their parents. And it wasn't enough to let him watch it - with Madeleine and Daniel in tow, Madeleine fascinated because it's a screen with moving images, and Daniel bored because nobody's racing, chasing bad guys or doing something vaguely destructive... No - I had to be part of the learning adventure. Ian insisted that I come in to watch the survey of electricity-generating experiments - especially the part where the balloon catches on fire from all that wacky electricity being created. Of course, I turned out to be wrong when I thought a guy could blog while watching Mr. Wizard; science deserves our undivided attention, as Ian established by asking, ""Pleas put down the computer, too."

As Mr. Wizard's scientific Odyssey was winding down, Ian pointed out that we could finally head out of the house, as we had been planning to do:

Ian: Wait - Daddy, I think it's actually time to go?

Me: Why?

Ian: I finished my grilled cheese sandwich

(June 9, 2011)

(June 9, 2011)