First, a disclaimer. Despite the title, this post is not about Chanukah. Christmas is the next holiday I need to catch up on over here, and it’s not about that either. I’ll get to the non-Chanukah han-kah part soon enough.
Everything about this is wrong for a small child. The setting, Matt’s allergen-filled, dusy office, is wrong. The background music, some rather hard sounding rock, is wrong. The medium, a YouTube video viewed on a lap-top computer, is wrong. The sponsor, Red Bull, is no good for anyone but especially wrong for a toddler.
And yet, the scene as a whole is so funny I can’t help indulging myself and Simon. The most recent story over here is that Simon has fallen in love with a YouTube video of a red helicopter doing back-flips . Matt found it online one day when Simon wanted to sit on his lap and bang on his computer and Matt went looking for something to show him. He ran a search for “helicopter” on YouTube and up came this rock-scored video of a Red Bull branded helicopter doing aerial tricks. And for three minutes and 51 seconds, Simon was mesmerized.
As this happened about the same time we began to celebrate Chanukah, the words got all mixed up and “Han-kah” came to mean: (1) a menorah, and (2) a helicopter. In theory this could get confusing, but in actuality the only helicopter Simon cares about is the “dee-dee” or red one.
So once or twice a day, Simon runs into Matt’s office, jiggles the mouse on his desk, and calls out “Dee-dee han-kah! Dee-dee han-kah” until we distract him or show it to him. During a viewing, Simon looks like a tiny movie director, arms flailing, feet twitching, and finger pointing like mad as though he wants to direct the action and make sure his dumb parents see everything going on in front of them. He’s very vocal, too. “Oh no! Oh no! Dee-dee han-kah! Han-kah! Uh-oh! Uh-oh! Wow!”
It is absolutely hilarious. Being the concerned parents we are, we are of course taking active measures to limit Simon’s screen time. We limit Simon to two airings of dee-dee han-kah at a time.
Then we move on to the laughing babies…