August 13, 2006

From the time when Riley was but a tiny zygote, working on his mitotic cell division processes in order to properly develop the future ability to spray wet half-chewed turkey directly into his mother’s eye, I dreamed of the day that I would read to my baby. In my mind I pictured a tender tableau: mother and child bent over a book together, my lifelong love of stories and words passing on to my son.

Well, I don’t know about other people’s babies, but Riley apparently missed the memo that storytime was supposed to be a Touching Hallmark Moment™. Until recently, Riley has regarded books not as magical portals to imagination and wonder, but rather as big flat toys to be whacked, batted at, and grabbed. The fact that his mother’s voice was droning on and on while the flat toys were present was merely a distraction, and my efforts at turning pages or holding the book upright were inevitably met with howls of frustration. The idea of reading to him before bed was laughable, because getting out a book was a sure-fire way to crank him up to eleven (“Hey! It’s the flat toy again! I must rip it apart and gnaw its moist remains!”).

Lately, though, he’s been quieting down and tolerating the passive role of being read to at night. He seems to especially like a Baby Einstein book called Good Night Mimi (which, by the way, has the ugliest artwork of any child’s book I’ve ever seen and looking at it night after night is boring Mimi-shaped-holes into my temporal lobe), and on a few occasions he’s actually drifted gently off to sleep directly after a bedtime story, which is one of those ridiculously wonderful fairtytale parenting moments where you start firehosing rainbows and sunshine out your ass and making plans for a bunkbed…until ten minutes later when he wakes back up and starts rattling a cup against his crib bars and wailing “ATTICA! ATTICA!”.

He still prefers the tactile qualities of books, maybe because, uh, he’s a baby. You know, he’s all “I have only a tenuous grip on language” and “I find colors and pictures fascinating and I want to touch them” and “I pooped an enormous quantity of digested pears inside my pants”. So when our neighbor gave him a book that has both pictures, words, AND sounds (there’s a battery-operated little strip down one side that makes various noises) I figured it would be a bit hit.

As I expected, Riley loves this book. It’s called Big Noisy Trucks and Diggers Demolition, and it’s a licensed product of, I am not making this up, Caterpillar Inc. I suppose the gender-stereotypical equivalent marketed for little girls would be Fluffy Pink Ponies and Their Sparkly Anorexic Math-Hating Princess Friends.

Anyway, we were looking at Big Noisy Etc and pushing the obnoxious noise-making buttons (one of them sounds exactly like the robotic grind of the Terminator from the first movie, when he’s just the metal skeleton), when I started noticing that the text was a little…well, suggestive. The more I read, the more my eyebrows climbed up into my forehead, until I turned to JB and said, “Is it just me, or–” and he said “This book is making me feel funny. IN MY PANTS.”

BLOW THE HORN, it reads. RAISE THE LONG BOOM. START HAMMERING. SAY “READY TO UNLOAD”.

kbp_load.jpg

Really now. Someone pass me my salts.

When I finished snickering about “loads” and “hammering” I started wondering if any of Riley’s other books contained such questionable material. It turns out the answer is yes, yes, YES, OH GOD YES!

For instance:

kbp_flute.jpg

Dora the Explorer says, this one time? In band camp? I stuck mi flauta in my–

Also:

kbp_monkeys.jpg

From Sock Monkey Goes to Hollywood. Sock Monkey Has a Hot Tub Orgy With a Bunch of Sex-Crazed Baboons, more like.

And:

kbp_tadpoles.jpg

Spermatozoa in My First 1-2-3 Play Book. Sure, it says “tadpoles” but I think we all know what that image depicts: the microscopic view of any Extended Stay Hotel’s bedspread.

(Yes, still bitter, why do you ask?)

Let’s not forget:

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Freight Train, going through “tunnels”, if you know what I mean. And I think you do. (Photo slightly edited through careful image clarification process.)

Finally, we have:

kbp_hands.jpg

Where Is Baby’s Belly Button, asking the question no one wants the answer to.

Sure, you can tell me I have a filthy mind and I enjoy twisting innocent children’s literature into questionable jokes that are offensive at best, and you’d probably be right…or are you? Maybe there’s a hidden agenda at work here, and it’s time to wake up, America, to the load that’s being released onto today’s youth.

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kara marie
17 years ago

Thank God it’s MILD soap.

zu
zu
17 years ago

Where are baby’s hands?!!!?

Emily
17 years ago

THANK YOU, O Dirty-Minded One! Now will you please tell my bosses that I am not abnormal for snorting during the Army combatives training video when it is trying to teach me the “Rear Mount”?

Mama Ritchie
17 years ago

We are going thru the same phase. As I mentioned at MoRitchie, Jase and I play “Name That Innuendo” game with every show or book Charlie sucks in. “Let’s do the rhythm of the HOT DOG!”

Laura
17 years ago

In a moment of laughing-out-loud hilarity, I just read your post to my husband and he said, and I quote, “Only a pervert would find sexual references in children’s books.” To which I said, “Bwahahaha!” He needs to start reading your blog. He just doesn’t get it.

Sara
17 years ago

…And don’t even get me started on Raffi! Have you heard some of those lyrics? There’s one song that we call “Brokeback Raffi.” I think this finding-of-the-naughty in our kids toys/books/music is a sign that we are seriously in need of some adult time (whatever that may mean!).

Amy
Amy
17 years ago

You are a funny one. Except the ejaculation on the bedspread story, not so nice. (Will be closely inspecting when we go on holidays tomorrow..)

Amie
17 years ago

You are so not alone. I’m constantly raising an eyebrow at the things I see in the kids books. Also? Nick Jr.? My daughter was addicted to Blues Clues, and had several video cassettes of the show. They always had a Peanuts video blurb before the shows started and I SWEAR they were saying Penis videos.

Small children. Begging for Penis videos. And their parents. Talking about how they loved Penis videos when they were kids! And now! Happy day! They can watch Penis videos together!

There’s either something very wrong with them, or very wrong with me. Heh.

Kristin
17 years ago

I am still digesting the distinctively pooh-shaped monkey being lathered by smiling – smiling…wtf ARE those creeplor things?

Have you seen the Usborne touchy-feely books? (I know…touchy-feely!) but they have different textures and Nolan loves them.

jonniker
17 years ago

Scouts honor, I skimmed to the photos first and read the yellow truck one and thought, “holy jesus, that is kind of…pornographic and I don’t think I could read that with a straight face” before I even read the rest of the entry. It’s all in the “release the load,” I think.

To make the sock-monkey scene even creepier: Aren’t those baboons the ape-like things with the bright-red bare asses? Just, um, thinking out loud. Back it up and keep loading until you fill it up!

Sorrysorrysorry. I just grossed myself out.

Mona
17 years ago

I lost it at “mi flauta.”

honeybecke
honeybecke
17 years ago

I am totally with Kristin on the Usborne touchy feely books (they are seriously called that!)
This is about the only book I can get Elliot interested in. Here is a link, just for fun. He actually sits still and gets into it. Trucks, man.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&isbn=0794502288&itm=2

Gentry
17 years ago

You should be famous and/or rich for your ability to make up things like “Fluffy Pink Ponies and Their Sparkly Anorexic Math-Hating Princess Friends.”

This made me snort coffee out of my nose.

JennB
17 years ago

I almost snarfed my Kashi reading this entry. Seriously. Stop. Don’t stop. Stop! Don’t! Stop!
You’re the most hilarious ever. When do you get a book deal, anyway? You deserve one!

Graciemay
Graciemay
17 years ago

Sundry, Sundry, Sundry………Your mind is SO in the gutter. BWAHAHAHAHAAHA so is mine !

Jessie
17 years ago

Um, yeah. I’d say the excerpt from Big Noisy Etc. is fairly suggestive. I would probably not have been able to read it, what with all the laughter that would be erupting from even seeing those words.

Adrien
17 years ago

Hey! You have Cece Bell’s sock monkey book! She’s a friend of my older sister. You have good taste in dirty baby books, my friend.

Much More Than A Mom
17 years ago

Oh my God I love it! I’m going to bring my husband back to read this when he gets home!

sunShine
17 years ago

HAHAHA! That is too funny! I love the anorexic princess friends.

Caitlin
Caitlin
17 years ago

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

justmouse
justmouse
17 years ago

i quite agree that many children’s books/shows/movies are really just poorly conceled smut. i remember going to see The Hunchback of Notre Dame (the disney version, of course) with my son when he was very little. i sat there stunned, looking over at my friend, saying, “is she….POLE DANCING?!?!” and my friend, who has been known to frequent the strippers in his spare time, looked over at me and laughed! yes. disney now has pole dancers.

there was also the movie Balto, where there was a suggestive comment made by a lady husky about the size of Balto’s paws *wink wink nudge nudge*. i remember sitting there in the theatre hearing at least a dozen mums start to giggle, and at least a half-dozen little voices saying, “Mommy! what’s so funny? mommy? MOMMY? why are you laughing?”

smut. all of it.

Annie
17 years ago

My son has a book called Tumble Bumble, in which a bunch of animals, who don’t know each other, hook up on the street, break into a house, and all end up in bed together. Swinging 101 for babies.

victoria
victoria
17 years ago

You’re hilarious.

Katie
17 years ago

This is the funniest thing I have ever heard. “Fluffy Pink Ponies and Their Sparkly Anorexic Math-Hating Princess Friends.” Brilliant!

Melissa
Melissa
17 years ago

Believe it or not, I found this site by Googling “best jeans for a flat ass” (it’s one of the first that comes up). Anyway, I read the jeans entry, added you to my favorites and checked out today’s latest. What a funny chick you are! I have 2 girls, ages 3 and 2. The other night they were in the tub surprising each other by sticking their fingers in each other’s bootie. Cracking up over it.
To adults, a finger up the butt is porn or a bad doctor’s visit. To kids, a finger up the butt is just good times.

Though I haven’t solved my flat-ass dilemma, at least I have something new to read. Thanks!

Samantha
17 years ago

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Jem
Jem
17 years ago

You remember the Dirty Episode of the Rainbow tv show right? Actually, you might have been the one I originally found the link off. I can’t remember.

Sassy
Sassy
17 years ago

Right there with you, sister.

Sonia (DDM)
17 years ago

WHAT is this world COMING TO??? First the smarmy sweet lady that hosts ‘The Goodnight Show’ on the Noggin channel gets booted for doing soft porn, and now THIS? LOL! This might be the funniest post I’ve ever read. Seriously. Milk-out-my-nose funny.

ali
ali
17 years ago

seriously.
everything is about sex.
everything. even children’s books. :)
and don’t get my started on children’s movies…

Alexa
17 years ago

Three words: Pat The Bunny. Have you read it lately? It is a filthy, filthy book. For instance, in highschool a friend of mine sang a song in her sexy-jazz-singer voice, the lyrics of which were the text of Pat The Bunny (not altered in any way!). She was nearly expelled, but she got a standing ovation…

Brooke
17 years ago

Hahahahahahahahahaha!

Holy crap, Alexa, that’s hysterical.

Sundry, you’re amazing. I wish I wrote like you.

Forwarding to Chris —————>

Melis
Melis
17 years ago

My favorite line in “Runaway Bunny”:

“If you become the wind and blow me….”

My husband simply cannot read this book to the little man without snickering.

MATTY!
17 years ago

One of these days I’m going to die laughing from one of your entries…and won’t YOU be be sorry!

Fantastic. lol.

pippa
17 years ago

Hey, MY kids are watching Oswald, where it’s Big Banana Day. Oswald just gave some of HIS big banana to Henry.

I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.

Jacqueline
17 years ago

For Christmas, I bought my [then] 4 month old a book called “Where’s the Bone?” http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00067U1OC/qid=1135097533/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl21/002-7969586-7544829?v=glance&s=toys&n=507846

Neither hubby nor I can read it without snickering. The book encourages the reader to hide the bone on every page. Maybe when we grow up we can actually read it to our baby…

Jack Fairechild
17 years ago

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