I'm a loser, baby...

You all know this song, right?

So the radio is on quietly in the kitchen and I am singing along as I flit between rooms sorting out the kids' tea. The lyric comes along: I'm a loser, baby... so why don't you kill me? Except in the pause the inappropriateness of singing this in front of my 3 year old and 16 month old suddenly hits me. My mental process reaches for a substitute word, strikes 'thrill' from the register as also not ideal and before you know it the lyrics hit and I'm singing:

"I'm a loser baby... so why don't you say hello?"

Why 'say hello'? I honestly do not know, other than I clearly am indeed a loser.

But then:

"Hello!" pipes up 3 year old, "Bonjour! Ni Hao!"

I give you The Lingo Show, and a timely reminder to self that kids really do pay attention to what they watch on TV. I quite like the Lingo Show; it's fun, cheerful and just a bit silly. What's going to be the best food for a bug to karate-chop? Will it be banana or orange juice...?

It's well complemented by the Lingo Show Game on the Cbeebies website, which The Girl can mostly manage on her own. Her favourite bug is Wei, the Mandarin-speaker, so that's got to bode well for her future global competitiveness, right? As let's face it, at least one of the kids is going to have to earn enough to support me and Himself in our elder years, as any hope of saving a liveable pension is quite frankly screwed - it's either that or we take the Logan's Run approach. So perhaps if I look at it that way, we're actually investing in our futures by watching Lingo, right? It's not lazy parenting at all...

I'll leave you with the thought that 'Loser' was out in 1993, way back when a second class stamp cost 20p and petrol was 45p a litre. *counts pennies and sobs*