Kids as Captive Audience

Kids as Captive Audience

School holidays are upon us! I don’t mind at all. I can sleep in; there are no lunches to make and no mad running around morning routine to get the kids prepared for school. There’s no homework to be negotiated (wrestled is the more apt descriptor) and the kids can relax and slowly strip away the horrors (according to them) of the school term.

Kids are great! They entertain and are entertained in turn.

One of the best things about having kids (according to the Book of Gabe) is that they are a veritable captive audience. This is no small thing and must be taken advantage of until children reach that period of life – teenager hood – when they transform into extra-terrestrials and parents put on the cloak of invisibility. But let’s not even go there yet!

Yes, let’s focus on the benefits of the captive audience. Kids are pretty much hanging around their parents for large chunks of time – being nurtured and what not. Take advantage of this time to annoy the hell out of them with spontaneous outburst of song and the telling of bad jokes. You can even throw in some totally embarrassing dance moves from the seventies or eighties, so they know that you were once hip to the groove man (oh dear).

I do these activities at every opportunity. Yes, singing is my forte (or they might say – Mum’s greatest weapon in the torture cabinet) and crazy dancing is a regular habit (with or without music). But I also can’t seem to help myself when it comes to targeting the kids with bad jokes and silly skits (including the use of ridiculous accents and actions).

It is important when torturing, ahem I mean entertaining the kids, that you utilise the favoured themes of the under thirteens. By this I mean the incorporation of poo, fart and bodily function themes into the stage repertoire. I will give you an example (this one popped out this morning 😉 ):

My dogs get fed at the same time each day and if I dare sleep past this time in the morning I will be woken to a cold dog nose persistently pushing into my arm or face. Sometimes I wake to two Labradoodle doggies just staring at me in forlorn fashion. What is wrong with pack leader – doesn’t she know our stomachs are empty and we haven’t been fed for days and days (or so it seems).

Sometimes the kids come in to watch Mum being harassed by hairy carnivores with bad breath! The kiddiewinks feed themselves breakfast and like to do their own thing in the morning, so are in no hurry for Mum to get up (in fact they prefer it that way; less supervision = more fun for kids). But they do enjoy the dog show.

I was trying to ignore these canine encouragements (while trying to get back to a nice dream I had been having) and suggested that Tessa might like to feed the beasties.

‘See how hungry Jazzy is Tessa. Do you think you could feed the dogs?’

Jazzy proceeds to start licking her furry posterior (in the under tail region to be precise).

‘Look, she has already started on the entree – residue of dog poo’, I said in bad French accent.

Tessa is now rolling around, laughing her head off. Michael is laughing and shaking his head.

See, captive audience – haha – take advantage while they are too young to escape.

Tessa also fed the dogs (what a darling daughter).

Kids are the best!

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