Barney

Yesterday after Charlotte’s ballet/tap class, we came back home for a 15 minute pit-stop before dashing out again. The kids had earned a free meal at Panera Bread from the summer reading program at the library, so I was taking them out to lunch followed by a movie (WALL-E). So we come back home for a quick stop so that I could get some stuff ready to go the bank, and a couple other quick things. Charlotte asked if she could watch TV, and I figured why not, it was only going to be for a few minutes anyway. She flipped on the TV and it just so happened to be Barney, that infamous purple dinosaur. Now, I really can’t stand him, and I think that’s an opinion held by most adults. I’ve watched the show with my kids; I really try to watch what they like just to see what it’s all about, then I know if it’s “mom-approved” or not. I had to think about why does this show bug me so much? Barney isn’t so bad himself, really. Then one day it dawned on me that it’s the kids on the show that annoy me. They’re way too old! I get that preschooler actors may not cooperate and do the skits as written, but man, these kids are in second grade or something. I wonder if they get beat up at school for participating on this show.

Anyway, Charlotte doesn’t like Barney either, and never has. I’m totally OK with this and haven’t lost any sleep over it, but I never really understood why she didn’t like Barney. There’s a lot of singing and dancing going on in this show, and she’s a singing and dancing fool. When she turned on the TV to PBS during our pit stop at home and Barney was on, I think I got a clue as to why she doesn’t like him. I could hear ‘ole Barney singing again, and for some reason I had an ear peeled to the song while taking care of banking business (multi-tasking mom here!) As it turned out, it was nearing the end of the show and Barney was singing his clean up song and talking about how fun clean up was, tra-la-la, skip-to-my-lou. I hear Charlotte mumble under her breath, “Cleaning is not fun.” Oh girl, no truer words were ever spoken from your mouth (if you could only see her room.)