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A positive: She's discovering the arts, paricularly music. She's coming close to being able to sing "Come Together" word-for-word with no help from me, aside from repeatedly hitting the "back" button when she starts whining, "I wanna sing 'Come Together' agaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain!'" This morning she lost her mind listening to Springsteen's The Seeger Sessions. In particular, she loves to scream, "Fiddles! I love these fiddles!" at the beginning of "John Henry". Sweetie, you're one-half purebred Ozark hillbilly; of course you love those fiddles! And your my child, so of course you love Springsteen. There is order to this universe.

A negative: She's already finding forms of "art" - and I'm using that term in the loosest possible sense - that irritate the fuck out of her parents. In my child's short lifetime, she's seen maybe a grand total of 20 minutes of the childrens television abomination that is Oobi. And yet, for the past two days, that's all she's talked about. Well, that and fiddles. Oobi and fiddles. Hear that? Yeah, that's my head, being slammed through my hardwood floor.

For those of you without kids, and those of you who have the good sense to not let your kids watch TV, let me describe the show to you. All the characters are hands. As in, "We don't have a large enough production budget to make sock puppets. Sorry kids, the entire show will be performed with bare hands."

This is the look that has captured my child's imagination, People. Unblinking, vaguely reptilian, and creeping my shit out. Clara Jane has recovered from the sleep problems she had a few weeks ago. But tonight, having watched a full episode of those unflinching stares, I'm sure my sleep problems are just beginning. I'm going to see that plastic gaze in my nightmares.

Oobi's the big one. He's a kid. The little one's his sister Uma. She has a big thumb, an even bigger sword and she once overdosed by snorting heroine that she thought was cocaine, but John Travolta drove a syrenge of adrenaline into her heart and she was fine. They live with Grandpu. We know he's an adult because his entire body is covered with hair.

The worst part is, Clara Jane speaks at a much higher level than Oobi and his ilk. I don't want them bringing her down. I mean, they refer to themselves in the third person and they know nothing about feline lactation.

A positive: While she was a bit slow to walk, Clara Jane no longer has any problems in that realm. She gets some air when she jumps, boogies like a Rick James backup dancer, and can run both with and without clothing, although she prefers the latter.

A negative: This child has no fear. Couple that with a love of motivation, and we can guarantee that every single fun activity will, indeed, end in injury. Here's a glimpse at our weekend. The parenthetical notes refer to the number of years each incident removed from my life span.

1. Friday night, we had a lovely dinner at the park, which ended with Clara Jane letting go mid-swing and face-planting in the wood chips. (5)
2. Saturday afternoon, we had a little family time in the backyard, where Clara Jane poked herself in the eye with a large stick. (3)
3. Saturday night, we hit the local frozen custard stand. In her post-custard sugar buzz, Clara Jane was running wind sprints around a picnic table, and ran belly-first into the corner the bench in roughly the location of her liver. (8)
4. Sunday, she spent the day in the house, covered in a 4" protective layer of quilt batting held on with Saran-Wrap. (4)

See why I don't have time to blog? Or do anything else, for that matter?