In search of quality entertainment…

Last week I bravely ventured back to the bookstore where the Toddler had one of her failed runaway attempts several months ago. This time, though, I managed to contain her in the train table area for nearly an hour while the Preschooler entertained herself with literary classics such as this one:

And, for a closer look at the eye-catching cover and clever title…

It’s upon discovering books like this that I start to think that maybe I, too, could have a career in children’s book publishing.  How hard can it be to pose a few plastic people and script a plot about a beach wedding?

I know, there’s probably more to it than one would think, but seriously… does the Matel company not make a fortune enough off of the dolls to just stick to doing what they do best?  Of course, the Preschooler would probably rank the entertainment value of this book up there with a Caldecott winner any day…

Just before our bookstore trip last week, the Toddler kicked off the weekend by falling face first off of our swing set.  I know that many children enjoy swinging while sitting down, but her preferred position is on her stomach with her head flopped over the front side.  {She has, of course, learned this from watching the Preschooler demonstrate the joys of upside down swinging.  She has no choice but to be adventurous}. Unfortunately, she hit the ground so hard that it immediately bruised the bridge of her nose and caused a brief nose bleed.  She also ate a tiny bit of grass.  I’m not sure if the impact, or the grass in her teeth, or the shear frustration of falling was worse for her, but she was upset for a good bit.  And, she has the bruise to prove it.  Apparently, she didn’t feel that the true story was dramatic enough, so when her Mimi later asked her what happened to her nose, she told her in her most serious tone {and without skipping a beat} that her sister hit her in the face.

Believable, but not exactly accurate…

If falling off the swing wasn’t dramatic enough, later in the weekend the Toddler discovered how frightening the characters in Disney films can be.  This is her just before the car DVD player got to the part in Snow White where the evil queen makes her first appearance.

We had to fast-forward through every scene involving the queen from this point on while the Toddler yelled at an ear-piercing volume, “The queen!  The queen!  I’m scared of the queen!”

I thought we would do OK with the classic Disney animated films, but do you know that nearly every single one of them has a few disturbing characters and/or scenes?  And, let’s not even talk about the unbearable sadness of Bambi.

Clearly, we need to find some better books and DVD’s before our upcoming summer road trips… any suggestions?