I sat down on the couch. It had been a long day at work, and I wanted nothing more than to relax for a bit and enjoy some silence. I have two kids that appear to love me very much, so “relax” and “silence” is virtually unknown in this house. I’m sure that my wife is having trouble reading these very words during her extremely exaggerated eye-roll as she silently shouts “YOU HAVE NO IDEA!!!! Try being home all day, EVERY day with these lovable monsters!”

So, it was absolutely no surprise that Tyler was running laps through the rooms while shouting “Hi daddy… bye daddy.” Sarah came to sit on the couch with me “Hi daddy… bye daddy.” to snuggle and make a little small talk. Audrey was in her room “Hi daddy… bye daddy.” taking a nap. I have no idea how she can sleep “Hi daddy… bye daddy.” through all the noise that her big brother makes during “Hi daddy… bye daddy.” every waking moment of the day.

There we were, enjoying one another’s company while my 9 month old daughter slept, and my three year old son charged through the house like a spider monkey hopped up on speed. I asked Sarah how her day had been, and was listening to her recap a day of fun, drama, crying, laughter and every other emotion that my strong-willed (to put it lightly) family can express. Mid-sentence, Tyler ran up to us and dropped a bomb. A bomb that I swear I’ve never even hinted at before.

“Mommy? Why aren’t you doing your job?”

“What job?” Sarah inquired, genuinely intrigued on where Tyler was heading.

“Cleaning the kitchen.”

I’m not the world’s smartest man, and I’ll never pretend to be, but I KNEW that my safest course of action would be to keep my word-hole shut and simply stare at the floor. So, imagine my surprise at myself when I burst out in laughter.

Not my smartest move.

The scene: We have somebody coming to look at our house soon. The realtor told us that the person really liked our garage. In preparation of the showing, I want to go to the garage and spend some time cleaning it up and really show how much room there is in there. Tyler and I have gotten dressed and are getting ready to come down the stairs. At the last moment, I realize that we forgot to grab socks.

“Wait, Tyler. We need to get some socks first.”

“Okay daddy.”

We walk back into Tyler’s room. I grab a pair of socks for him and then go to my room to get a pair of socks for myself. As we start to go down the stairs, I ask Tyler if he can carry his socks.

“Uhm, sure. Then we put them on, and we go outside and play play play.”

We continued down the stairs. Unbeknownst to me, Tyler was busy pondering something. I turned to look at him and saw that he had a bit of a smirk on his face. I wondered whether I should ask what he was thinking about or let him finish his thought process. As I watched, he raised his socks above his head and started to swing them at me.

“Daddy, I’m gonna sock you with my socks!”

And then he did.

The suspicious-looking green van raced around the corner at better than twenty five over the posted speed limit. The driver navigated the turns and curves with reckless abandon. Ahead, he spotted a brown tow truck, along with a redneck’s dream: a red pickup truck with roof-mounted spot lights. The deafening scream of four tires filled the air as the driver tried to push the brake pedal through the floor of the green van. Moments later, he came to a rest mere centimeters from the two trucks.

The green van bounced on its tires as he spoke. “Hi, I’m purple van!”

The brown tow truck bounced as he replied, “You not purple! You green.”

The green van bounced as each syllable was spoke. “Oh, I’m sorry. Hi, I’m blue van.”

“You not BLUUUUUUUUUUE!” the red truck exclaimed, laughing.

By the normal observing eye, such an exchange would seem odd, but this was normal life in the lawless town of Road Rug, in the climate-controlled state of Living Room, Indiana. In such a place as this, it’s not strange at all to see a dog, 20 times larger than any of the vehicles on the street, walk across the entire town in less than two seconds. It’s equally normal for plastic Lego blocks to rain from the sky upon the townspeople. On at least on occasion, yellow car witnessed a blue car hover from the ground then fly away to the uninhabited town of Windowsill. Yep, normal life around these parts.

The giant hand bounced the green van again as the voice spoke, “What do you mean I’m not blue!? I’m blue with pink stripes!”

The hand controlling the red truck, massive compared to the truck, but tiny compared to the giant hand animating the van, bounced up and down. “No *laugh* you *laugh* not *laugh*!!”

It’s been a very satisfying evening in House. Red truck, brown tow truck, green van, Stinky, Bus, and Bulldozer destroyed everything within the borders of Road Rug. Not a single person dared to leave their houses, or enter the city limits from outside the town. It was a very satisfying evening indeed.

But then something strange happened. Green van – the happily bouncing van that spoke to other vehicles – broke the rules of playtime etiquette. Green van drove close to the smaller giant and spoke directly to him.

“Tyler, what color are you?”

The little giant looked confused. His hands pulled away from red truck and brown tow truck, and rested in his lap. He looked for a few moments at the green van, then towards the giant controlling it.

“Nothing,” he replied.

“Nothing?” the giant questioned.

“Yeah. I not have a color. I no color.”

The giant scrambled to his knees. “What do you mean you don’t have a color?!?!?!”

A small smile formed on Tyler’s mouth. “You not have a color EITHER!” He yelled the last word.

The giant sprang forward and tackled Tyler. As Tyler screamed for help and mercy, the giant tickled him while yelling “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON’T HAVE A COLOR!?!?!!?!”

“STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT!!!”

The giant paused. “What?”

Through an enormous grin, he answered, “I farted on you.”

“WHAT?!?!?!” The giant began tickling him again. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU FARTED ON ME?!?!?!?”

“STOP STOP STOP! I have to go pee!!!”

Lucky little punk.

It’s interesting how something changes, although it is precisely what it was before. When I was a young child, I loved watching Fraggle Rock.

Dance your cares away,
Worry’s for another day.
Let the music play,
Down at Fraggle Rock.

Work you cares away,
Dancing’s for another day.
Let the Fraggles play,
We’re Gobo, Mokey, Wembley, Boober, Red.

Dance your cares away,
Worry’s for another day.
Let the music play,
Down at Fraggle Rock.
Down at Fraggle Rock.
Down at Fraggle Rock.

We were recently enjoying a lazy evening around the house and decided to find something to stream via Netflix. Sarah went to the kitchen to make popcorn, while I perused the “Watch it now” list on Netflix.com.

“What we watching, daddy?”

“What ARE we watching, daddy?” I corrected. “I don’t know yet, I’m still looking.”

“What ow we watching, daddy?”

“I don’t know. I just told you I don’t know. Why aren’t you listening to me?”

“We watching a mooooovie?”

“Tyler. Seriously. We’re not going to watch anything if you don’t let me see what there is to watch.”

Tyler paused, seeming to process my last statement. I returned my attention to the screen, scrolling past Bob the Builder, Thomas the Train, and a plethora of other shows that I honestly couldn’t care less about.

“I want to watch something.”

I closed my eyes, and chose to just ignore Tyler. Then, I saw it. Season one of Fraggle Rock.

“Sarah,” I shouted across the house, “how about Fraggle Rock?”

The reply – and excitement – was immediate. “YES!”

As I clicked the appropriate links and booted up the Wii, I told Tyler what we were going to watch.

“I not want to watch Flaggle Rock.”

“Tyler, you don’t know what you want. You’re going to love Fraggle Rock.”

From start to finish of episode one, of season one, Tyler’s eyes were glued to the screen. When the episode ended, he said “Want to watch another one.” So we did.

The beauty of Netflix is that you can stream these shows commercial free. Each episode is approximately 22 minutes. For roughly 44 minutes, Tyler laughed at Sprocket, learned about Fraggles, Dozers, and the King, Queen and Prince of the universe (the Gorgs). He giggled madly when the Trash Heap appeared and spoke with her rats.

Sarah and I? We spent those 44 minutes giving each other strange looks. We whispered to each other.

“Do you remember this show being this bad?” I asked.

“No. I used to like this show,” she replied.

“Me too! Loved it. You know there’s 5 seasons of this on Netflix?”

“Amazing…”

“I wonder if our parents thought this show was as stupid as we think it is now.”

“Hahaha… I bet. I feel bad for them now.”

“WAIT! Doc… Look at him. Isn’t that the guy who’s in Boondock Saints? The dude that has Tourettes?”

“Oh my God. That is totally him. Hahahaha.”

Doc. The old guy that runs the workshop with his pet dog, Sprocket. He, strangely enough, also plays Doc in Boondock Saints, where one of his more memorable quotes in the movie is “Why don’t you make like a tree, and get the f— outta here?” Unbelievable.

A couple days ago, Sarah was having some rather strong contractions, and I was suffering from some intense neck pain. We decided to have another lazy evening. It was well deserved this time, though. Earlier, Tyler and I bundled up and played out in the snow with Delilah for a while. Then Sarah and Tyler played with dinosaurs and Legos. As the evening progressed, we just wanted to snuggle up, so I asked Tyler if he wanted to watch some more Fraggle Rock.

“YES,” he replied without hesitation. “I love Fwaggle Rock.”

Although watching the show through an adult’s eyes makes me realize that the show simply isn’t that good… I’m kinda looking forward to making my way through the 96 episodes.

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