Lessons Learned?

My favorite Star Trek Series is Deep Space Nine.  One of the characters that made it such a joy to watch, was Mr. Garak.  As a former spy, now exiled on an alien space station with the Federation in power, he forms an unlikely friendship with the straight laced Doctor Bashir. 

One day, Dr. Bashir explains to him why no one trusts his advice or stories by telling the tale of the Boy Who Cried Wolf. 

Mr. Garak asks if the moral of the story is what Dr. Bashir claims it to be, "Be honest."  Dr. Bashir asks, "What do you think the moral is?"   He answers, "Never tell the same lie twice." 

So when my daughter asked me, "What is the moral of Disney's The Little Mermaid?"  I had to consider, what did I want the lesson to be? 

I asked my friends on the internet, and gathered their wisdom, so without further adieu, I present to you, the top ten lessons that should be learned from Disney's "A Little Mermaid."

10) Never trust anyone with a creepy familiar(s).  

9) Learn Sign Language.

8) If your first act of adulthood involves selling your soul, mutilating your body and renouncing all the collective wisdom of your family and people, you better hope everyone comes to your rescue because this is not a good decision on your part. 

7) Crustaceans make lousy "in loco parentis." 

6) If the guy can't figure out it's you without your singing...maybe...you want someone smarter. 

5) If the girl combs her hair with a fork...maybe...you want someone smarter. 

4) Catchy tunes can make people forget your lack of character,  (See Ursula, Dr. Facilier, and Gaston).  

3) If the dog likes a character, this is a good person, marry her. If the dog doesn't like a person, that person must be a villain in disguise, attack and kill.  

2) You can marry all you wish, but few survive parenthood in a Disney universe. King Triton is a single dad monarch, and Prince Eric, an orphan for some time.   Sebastian is a singleton, Flounder seems to have no family, and Ursula, seems to have some relationship with Triton, maybe an evil Aunt or Sister, but there are no complete families anywhere.  You've been warned. 

1) Always read the fine print. 

Reading Lessons

"Why should I read these when better versions are availble on DVD?" It was hard to beat the logical issues raised by one so young. Saying "The books are richer." didn't satisfy the way a good musical number with singing crabs could.

With my first child, I read to him every day from the time he was two. I was obsessive about it and sure enough, my diligence bore fruit. He entered Kindergarten already a solid reader. By second grade, he was handling the third Harry Potter book when it first came out without my help.

My subsequent daughter took a little bit longer, but dove into big books as soon as she got the hang of things. My third child, always striving to ensure I didn’t mistake her for her older sister, held out on falling in love with reading until third grade. Then she discovered…if you’re reading, Mom doesn’t make you clean…and it became a favorite and preferred activity.

Three kids past third grade, three solid readers…a good track record.

But numbers have begun to wear down my endurance for returning to Green Eggs and Ham and Curious George. I have allowed the later children to delve into questionable reading material like Captain Underpants –in part because my son would read with his older brother –and I didn’t have to look at it.

For my fiver, she delighted in such fare as "Tinker bell finds Her Place," a story so sugary I considered the possibility of injecting insulin after the fifth reading. Plus, reading aloud, both my son and daughter like interrupting and that drives me nuts. They are not into the reading world yet, not in the transported way my older three are. The words haven't yet successfully cast a spell over their brains.


When I introduced Charlotte’s Web, my son wanted to know when we’d get to the part where the gosling danced with the pig. In the Gingerbread Man, my kids asked where Donkey and Shrek were. My daughter was thoroughly put out by the unhappy ending of Hans Christian Anderson’s Little Mermaid, and they were completely outraged by the way some authors had the audacity to rework the stories of Winnie the Pooh, Stuart Little, and even Harry Potter. My son, being a visual learner saw books as being so old fashioned. "I'll just wait until the movie version.”


I wanted my son and daughter to take to reading with a bit more enthusiasm than they do vegetables, or my husband does leftovers.


Being a good mom, I summoned my inner Sebastian…(Sung to “Under the Sea”)

“Inside a book…
Inside a book…
The story is better
A real Page turner
Just Take a Look!
Those Words Create a bigger scene
Of a Place You’ve Never Been!
And in Full Color
If You Take the Trouble
To Just Read a Book..”

Maybe I’d have fared better if we hadn’t been in the library, or if I had a backup band of singing bass and clams.

However, he did grudgingly put back the movie book version of the Pirates of the Caribbean Part III and agree to check out “The Trumpeter Swan.” (the assigned book for the next book report). And she checked out the original Peter Pan. "Tinker Bell is in this one too!" she told me in a knowing half secret. "The librarian told me!"

I picked out "The Rough Faced Girl," an American Indian version of Cinderella and a younger version of "The Once and Future King."

Eyeing me with suspicion, my son glared at my selection. "I bet it doesn't have any pictures."
Some day they’ll thank me I’m sure.


In the meantime, I’m going to work on my Swan and Dance number.



For more reading material as exciting and entertaining and transporting as dancing fish, try http://www.humor-blogs.com/!