The Stream

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Toothbrushes and Africa



This morning, Becket was a bit disappointed that he didn't have a silly singing toothbrush like the girls. The girls wiggle and brush to the tunes of Bare Necessities and Hakunamatata, his unfortunately is to the tune of We Will Rock You by Queen. These toothbrushes were given to them by a friend. Becket was pouting several times this morning and just when he would start to come to grips with it, he would rev up again and start crying. I tried telling him that he was lucky to have a singing toothbrush in the first place and maybe when this one wore down, we could find him a different one. I even showed the stomp and clap move. Still pouting.

In went my search on Google: Starving Children in Africa

Becket watched the video wide-eyed.

Since then he has not said another word about his toothbrush. In fact, conversation has gone quite the opposite direction from this morning:

Becket: "So kids don't have toothbrushes in Africa?"
Mic: "Nope."
Becket: "They don't have enough food to eat?"
Mic: "Nope."
Becket: "They don't have toys."
Mic: "Nope."
Becket: "They don't have cars or Rhinos like Grandpa Bob?"
Gretchen: "Or vans?"
Becket: "Or SUV's"
Mic: "Nope, nope, nope, and nope."

Conversation has continued like this all day. He even asked to watch the video again. Life changer.

3 comments:

Alicia H said...

Sorry I am not good at leaving comments. Thanks for being better than me. As far as Angel's Landing...scares me to death about the wind and the squirrels that almost fall off as they are running around trying to eat your food. They are super pickey by the way. Anyway...hope all is well in your new adventures. Miss you all tons! Keep sharing...cause it keeps me laughing!

Emily S. said...

This is one of my family's favorite stories: I was a little girl and my mom was doing my hair while we were watching TV. I was complaining about one thing after another - just being whiny. One of those commercials for the starving kids in Ethiopia came on TV. My mom pointed out how lucky I was compared to those children who were starving and didn't have clothes or toys, etc. And all I had to say was, "well they're used to it!"
----Like you, I did a similar thing when Cate was saying that she was "starving." I said, "I'll show you starving!" and then I googled an image of a starving child from Africa. I am not sure it had quite the impact on her as on your kids.

Erin said...

Ohhhh..I'm going to have to give that one a try...