Over the weekend Tennessee and his buddy Liam were playing a game of Mean Guys meet Snow
White. I do not completely understand the rules, but there are many elements to the game. Both boys take their shirts off and run around yelling “Mean Guy RAAAAAH” a bunch. The Snow White element is new and involves our completely black cat playing the role of Snow White. The Mean Guys follow her where ever she goes calling her is high pitched voices “Thnow White! Come here Thnow White!” She eventually gets sick of it and hides. It was at this point that the Mean Guys decided to build a block house in the dining room. Tennessee asked me to put on a record.
We recently moved our record player upstairs from the deep dark basement. The kids think it is the most amazing thing. Next week I am going to plug in and rotary phone and totally blow their minds. Tennessee especially loves all the weird records we have found at garage sales and crusty junk shops. He is partial to Polka, which makes me love him more than before, which I was sure wasn’t possible. And because as a parent I get to force my tastes on my children, I have been playing Prince’s Paisley Park whenever I can. I figured I could bring Liam into the Prince fan fold. Every boy needs to be exposed to a man that tiny, flamboyant and that secure in his masculinity.
I put on the first song on side 1. Around the World in a Day starts off with a high pitched noodle-ee synthesizer impression of a flute from another planet. Liam’s lower lip popped out and his eyes welled up. I asked him if he was alright. He told me in the tiniest of voices (not Liam’s usual holler for all occasion’s style) that the music was very scary. I moved the needle to the next song. It was pretty peppy and the boys jiggled their shoulders around and stacked blocks happily. Then Condition of the Heart began to play. Liam’s little lip popped out again. I waited for a minute to see what would happen. Tennessee noticed the lip too.
“Liam ith thith one sthcary too?” Liam just nodded his curly little head and looked as sad as a boy can be. Tennessee patted him and told him that “Ith okay Liam, I get sthcared too thomtimesth.” He went on to comfort his buddy, Liam got into the game too and repeated to himself a couple of times “I’n okay, ith not too sthcary. I’n okay.” I was so proud of those two little ruffians, taking care of each other in the face of scary experimental pop music. After that, I put on some Polka and those Mean Guys went crazy shaking their booties.
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