Boingy-Boingy

Sunday: We've spent a lot of today talking Boingy-boingny language.

"Boingy-boingy boigny-boingy boingy boigny boing. Boingy-boigny boingy boingy boigny boingy shimpaty shim-paty shimpaty boingy boing! Shimpatty bing dong ding bang bing bonk king kong!"

I have no idea either but Holly and Daisy and I kept it up for ages - and, weirdly, after a while, it did somehow start to make some sort of sense. I need to get more sleep or to mix with more grown ups.

One of the reasons that Boingy Boingy started to make sense so quickly is the vast number of Children's books I read at the moment. Bed-time stories, stories during the day, stories whenever the kids want and whenever I can spare the time from my busy schedule of potato peeling and toilet cleaning. Some of the books are fine. Some I like and enjoy reading (anything Dr Suessy for example is a joy to read out loud). Other things make me scream. Daisy has a thing for the Miffy books at the moment.

I hate Miffy.

I am coming to loath the bland, two-dimensional, Ikea flatpack bunny with a vengeance usually reserved for Tory backbenchers playing to the Daily Mail readers in their constituency.

This is Miffy on her bicycle:

Miffy goes riding on her bike.

Like all Miffy books there is a picture on one page, faced by four lines of the most intensely painful, sometimes meaningless, bilge I have ever had to read on the other.

Ferinstance:

Then I'll bike through the forest
it's beautiful and green
because of all the trees there
you have to ride between.

or

Perhaps it will start raining
that's not so good for you
but biking when it's raining
can be exciting, too.

or (from a different book)

The teacher got up early too
she stood there at the door
and Miffy was so pleased to see
the pendant that she wore.

I have read these books so often that I'm not reading them any more. I'm chanting them. Part of my brain is involved in getting the words that are on the page to my mouth and the kids' ears but it is such a small part of my head now that the rest of gets a chance to actually look at this stuff. "and Miffy was so pleased to see the pendant that she wore." What? Miffy was pleased to see her pendant? Why? It's never mentioned again in the rest of the book. What is this? What is going on here? This is secret cult stuff I'm sure of it.

"So Miffy, you recognised my pendant - now give me the secret handshake and the Justified Mysteries of the Ancients of Mu Mu Land will be yours..."

It's not just the Miffy books. I've been convinced for years that aliens have already made contact and are softening the world up by infiltrating children's TV. The real aliens aren't grey like the UFO nuts have us believe they are just about every colour but grey. Red. Green. Blue. Orange. When the generation brought up on The Tweenies, Barney, The Teletubbies, BooBahs and all the other weirdnesses that fill the preschool schedules at the moment hold the reigns of power the aliens will step forward.

In 2065 a giant silvery flying saucer will land on the White House lawn. Troops will rush into place. Tanks trundle down Pennsylvania Avenue. A line appears in the side of the ominous silveryness. A crack. It widens! It's a door! A ramp starts to slide forward. Troops finger triggers in nervous anticipation. Around the world millions leanforward towards their TV screen. The ramp has touched the grass. There's movement inside the disc and a stange figure emerges. It stands for a moment at the top of the ramp and raises a hand in an unmistakable gesture of friendship. It speaks:

Eh-oh, La-la! Eh-oh, Tinky-Winky!

In my more horrible 4 am bouts of paranoia I'm convinced the world has been contacted by more than one alien race - and they don't like each other. For some reason they have chosen earth as their battleground and during my kids' lifetimes vast ranks of evil Tweenies and Teletubbies will fill the streets and blast away whole city blocks with powerful laser weapons as they attempt to exterminate each other.

Back to sanity...

Hello Miffy!

But, a few pages later.

Oh My God! Miffy's fucking face fell off!

In another book Miffy goes to school

...to design barbed wire

...and see the local pervert exposing himself to the class.

Stuff the homoerotic subliminal messages that were supposed to be hidden in Batman and Robin's relationship:

It's what the hell is being done to our toddler's heads that scares me.

Our only hope lies in the massive brain power lurking inside this kid's skull.

And no I haven't Photoshopped this at all. This kid just has the weirdest biggest head ever put on a book cover. (I think she is painting a map of the only weakpoint in the Tubby DeathStar.)

Oh God I don't have the willpower to go on with this, boingy boingy boingy boing