Our Kids and Their Media - Tanner

Tanner:

So the kids are kind of into the Winter Olympics, in as much as they'll watch them if I have them on. It's not that that are unpatriotic, but they would be much more into them if Mario and Sonic were involved, because they love this game. They play everyday, and have "unlocked" all of the secret games, which they tell us with the relish that one would imagine would be reserved for curing cancer or some other such noble feat, but no we get, "Dad, guess what, we just unlocked Dream Snowboard Cross" at which point I'm supposed to congratulate them like they just graduated college or something...

Tanner loves "Family Huddle" the Manning family book. Now I'm a big football fan, and I like the Mannings, and they seem brighter than your average pro-football player, but writers they are not. Tanner loves the Mannings (see the Christmas post) and saw this book on his pre-school book order form. My advice, if you can keep it out of your house do. It's not actively bad, but it doesn't survive multiple parental readings like some other kids books can. My rule is I'll only read it once a week, and even then it's painful.

I don't know how Tanner came to develop a taste for neo-soul, but he loves "If You're Out There" by John Legend. I downloaded it after the Obama election as he wrote it specifically for that time and I loved the song, but Tanner takes it to a whole new level. He asks for it all of the time in the car and sings along with it very quietly, but very intently when it comes on. You can see that the song truly means something to him. It has better staying power than the Manning book, but I will admit that sometimes when it comes up on the display in the car I fast forward and hope he doesn't recognize the first few notes.....