The Cardboard Spaceship

*Please note: This post has no bearing on my true feelings about Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. I love the show. I think it is adorable and I love how much my 8 month old son loves it. He gets the biggest grin every time Daniel Tiger comes on the screen. He received a plush version for Christmas and it is his favorite thing ever!

Life as a SAHM can get pretty boring and tedious at times. Especially when everyone in your home is sick so there are no walks, no shopping outings, nothing. You just stay at home and rest. During this time you start to go a little crazy. “How do you know,” you may wonder. Well, I will tell you. It dawned on me while I was in the shower this morning and realized the inner dialog I was having with myself. Talking to myself in my head really isn’t anything unusual, but the way I was doing it was a bit strange. It went something like this…

-How was your day?

-Do you really want to know?

-Of, course!

-(imagine a teenage girl saying this to her friend while reading to get the full effect) Well, it started slow, like usual. Feed the baby, make the bed, you know… Then Daniel, Miss Elaina, and Catarina were playing and O comes over with this book, like usual.

“Hey, check out my new book! It’s all about boxes.” And, of course, the pages were filled with pictures of cardboard boxes. I mean, how lame can you get, right?

Then Teacher Harriet brings this big cardboard box over and places it in the middle of the circle. At first the gang was all confused, but then Teacher Harriet sang, “When you pretend you can be anything.”

 So then, Daniel decides that the box is a spaceship and he is the Astronaut-man-tiger. Catarina wanted to be a twirling star and Miss Elaina said she would be a purple planet. O refused to believe the box was anything more than a box. He can be such and egg-head sometimes. Teacher Harriet asked Daniel the astronaut-man-tiger to bring her back a moon rock, so Daniel imagined that he was flying through space, landed on the moon, and brought back a rock for Teacher Harriet.

Then O comes along, “That’s not a moon rock, that’s a block.” Daniel told him they were just pretending but O wouldn’t listen. “That’s not a moon rock, that’s a block! And that’s not a spaceship, it’s just a cardboard box!” Then he showed Daniel that lame book about boxes again. O is such a downer sometimes. I mean, really, how hard is it to use a little imagination, O? You are a talking blue owl!

Well, after that Miss Elaina pretended the box was a boat in the jungle and they saw an elephant, which was really the pile of nap blankets in the corner. So, of course O has to come over and ruin their fun, again. It almost turned into a fight, but Teacher Harriet broke things up before it became too intense. After a very long discussion, O finally, I mean finally, decided to put down that boring box book and pretend the box was a race car.

I was just sitting there listening to the entire thing and I could not believe what was happening! And it all happened before 10:00 a.m.

And you know why this all happened don’t you? It was all because of that Catarina Kitty-Cat. I can’t stand her. She thinks she is so cute with her ballerina act. But let me tell you something, she is no ballerina. True ballerinas are tough, they put themselves through unbelievable amounts of pain to get what they want. Does Catarina do that? NO!

She’s always throwing hissy-fits when she doesn’t get what she wants right away. I mean, seriously, Daniel will be playing house with her and not even 30 seconds after Daniels starts playing the baby bottle Catarina will start meowing for it. She will get so upset and frustrated so quickly that she forgets to use her words. “Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow!” I mean, really! She can be so catty sometimes I just change episodes so she doesn’t annoy me.

What really boils my broccoli is that Teacher Harriet always sides with her. It’s not called “Catarina Kitty-Cat’s Neighborhood” now is it? No! It is “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” so let the tiger play with the freaking doll baby bottle!