Monday, October 08, 2012

Spanish

One night Desmond wanted me to read the Spanish translations of the rules of Candyland to him.  I don't know how we got to that place late in the evening.  I don't know why I agreed, but there I was at the end of a long day, stumbling over Spanish pronunciations.  I don't know Spanish and it was really exhausting.  It gave me great sympathy for how tiring it must be to learn to read.

Pouring over a children's dictionary given to him
by a neighbor.  The kid loves words.

Thursday, October 04, 2012

Censored


Walking out the door,
DK: You hit me once, I'll hit you back.
Me: (startled as to where this came from and with a serious voice) That isn't a kind thing to say.
Des: But it's just a song.
Me: No song I've heard of.
Des: Yes you have. It's a Florence and the Machine song.

*crickets*   He was right.

And thus began our censorship a few months ago.  Goodbye Mumford & Son's, "Little Lion Man."  Goodbye Natasha Bedingfield's, "Weightless."  A happy goodbye to Lady Gaga', "Bad Romance."

There's a lot of beauty and truth in music with less-than-innocent themes and language.  Someday I'm sure Desmond will have the maturity and wisdom to enjoy them with us.  Until then, I've begun a game of whack-a-mole in musical censorship.



As an aside, as a kid I used to love "Like a Prayer"  because they were singing about prayer on the radio.  I also thought that "Material Girl" was about a girl who loved sewing projects.  So maybe his own innocence will do the censoring for me.