Today’s Bean story also happened during bath time.  Giving the Bean a bath is generally my job, though I don’t really think about it as a job.  (Well, sometimes I do.)  It’s kind of like a scheduled play date for me and the Bean.

As you know from the last story, most of the Bean’s bath toys are animals.  She has several of them, but one of her (and my) favorites is a pair of turtles.

As you can see, there is a big turtle with a smaller turtle on the big turtle’s back.  Now, if you’re like me, the first thing you think when you look at it is “mama turtle and baby turtle.”  The first few days we had them, I started referring to the turtles as mama and baby.  Not long after we got them, it occurred to me that there really wasn’t anything specifically feminine about the big turtle.  I realized that I must have unconsciously assigned sex to this turtle, and the only real rationale I could come up with was based largely on gender stereotypes.  That bothered me.  Furthermore, I thought to myself, this is a bath toy.  Bath time is daddy-daughter time for us.  So wouldn’t it be more appropriate to look at the pair as a daddy turtle and a baby turtle?

So, from then on, whenever the Bean pointed to the turtles and asked who they were, I would identify them as “daddy turtle” and “baby turtle.”  I felt a small sense of pride in having these turtles that served as our counterparts at bath time.  I began to wonder if the Bean got the connection, wondering if she thought of herself as the baby turtle and me as the daddy turtle.  It made me like the turtles even more.

Fast forward to last night.

As the Bean played in the bath, she stopped splashing for a moment when she spied the turtles on the edge of the tub.  She smiled and pointed at the little turtle.

“Who is that, Bean?”

She smiled.  “Baby.”

“Yeah, and who’s this?”  I said, pointing to the bigger turtle.

She paused for just a moment, then flashed her most impish grin and said, “Mama.”

I smiled.

In 2004, Robert Lutz, GM’s Vice Chairman of Product Development came out very strongly saying that building hybrids didn’t make economic sense.  But next year, they plan to introduce the Chevy Tahoe as a hybrid.  To be fair, Lutz was specifically saying that compact hybrid cars didn’t make sense, and that SUVs were a better option.  So, it’s not a complete contradiction.  However, he justified this statement by citing the price of gasoline – then $1.50/gal on the average – as the reason it didn’t make sense.  The current price is around $2.36/gal.  Considering that the national average was over $3.00 just a few short months ago and hasn’t been below $2.00 for over a year, I think it’s safe to say some new calculations are in order.  Especially if Dubya makes good on his thinly-veiled threats to invade Iran, a move than many economists believe would drive the price of oil to a staggering $100/barrel. 

Wow.  Yeah, so . . . back then, I talked about those “crazy” high gas prices of $3.00/gal.  I’d kill for that now.  Gas crossed the $4.00/gal point back in June of this year.  Furthermore, that “staggering” price of $100/barrel that I worried about is ancient history.  We haven’t been under $100/barrel for months and we peaked at over $140/barrel back in June.

Still think hybrid are just for tree-huggin liberals?

Did I mention: Gotcha bitch!

Electric and hybrid vehicles may be better for the environment, but the California Legislature says they’re bad for the blind.

It has passed a bill to ensure that the vehicles make enough noise to be heard by visually impaired people about to cross a street.

The measure would establish a committee to study the issue and recommend ways the vehicles could make more noise.

Are you effing kidding me? 

Great idea.  Here’s my new design for the Prius:

Now, I love the Bean.  A lot.  But I try really hard not to let my adoration interfere with my ability to objectively evaluate her cognitive development.  In fact, sometimes I worry (because I worry about everything) that I hyper-correct this behavior and fail to recognize her actual achievements, chalking them up as coincidences.  I hear myself saying things like, “Come on, she couldn’t possibly have learned that that fast, right?”

Yesterday, I was sitting on the floor with Mrs. JoseMonkey and the Bean, and the Bean was pointing out the Sesame Street characters on a piece of wrapping paper left over from her birthday party.  (Photos coming soon.)  The Bean loves to point at things, and we dutifully respond by telling her what she’s pointing at.  (Mrs. JoseMonkey does this all day long; she’s a trooper.)  Anyway, I’m not sure why it never occurred to me to do this up until yesterday, but I realized that it might make sense to ask the Bean to find each character on the paper.

So, I asked, “Where’s Elmo?”  The Bean thought for a moment, then pointed at Elmo and smiled.  (She loves Elmo.)

I tried again.  “Where’s Big Bird?”

Think think think.  Point.

“Yeah!  Where’s Ernie?”

Point.

“Woo-hoo!  Where’s Abby?”

Think think think.  Point.  Smile.

She even got Bert, whom I figured she’d miss since 1) he’s not one of her favorites and 2) he was only on one corner of the paper, sort of upside-down.  But she found him anyway.

Now, Mrs. JoseMonkey goes through these character names with her frequently, and the Bean watches lots of Sesame Street, so I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised that she is able to do that.  But I was floored.

Later that same night, I was giving the Bean a bath.  We broke out some new bath toys for her, a set of eight little animal “squirties” that she got for her birthday.  When I lined them up on the edge of the tub, she immediately went into the pointing routine, wanting to know what each one was.

We went through the animals twice, naming each one.  On a whim, I quizzed her:

“Bean, where’s the sheep?”

Think think think.  Point.

“That’s right!  Where’s the piggy?”

Think think think.  Point.

You get the idea.  She was able to identify them after hearing their names just twice?!  And she’d never seen these toys before!

Delusions, my ass.  I think we’re dealing with an above average IQ here.  W00T!  SMARTEST BABY EVAH!

Over time, I’ve come to despise the sound of The Damn Bell™.  This is mainly because the dogs ring it non-effing-stop between the hours of 5pm and 10pm.  They usually wait until your ass hits the sofa. 

Ding! 

Then, shortly after you let them out, they want to come back in.  (The coming back in part involves barking; there’s no outside bell.  You’re welcome, neighborhood.)  This is usually around the time you’ve decided to sit down again. 

Here’s the worst part, though.  While we like to smugly pat ourselves on the back for training our dogs to do this, the sad truth is that Mrs. JoseMonkey and I are the ones who are trained. 

Ding!  Get up and let the dogs out. 

Ding!  Again. 

Ding!  Ding!  We’re very good at it. 

My Pavlovian instincts were never more apparent than this morning.  You see, The Bean discovered The Damn Bell™.

As she was cruising around in her walker, she found this wonderful item dangling from the door knob.  You can guess what happened next. 

Ding!

Ding! Ding!

My training immediately kicked in and I started walking toward the door.  Realizing it was just The Bean, I laughed it off and went back to what I was doing.

Ding!

I headed for the door again, totally on auto-pilot.  I am a well-trained monkey. 

Somewhere, a beagle is laughing. 

The presumptive winner began to get frustrated, silently wishing that the other person would just bow out.  I couldn’t help but share his frustration.  “Oh, come on!  Give up already!”  I shouted at the television.  But the loser wasn’t listening.  Even though the result was obvious, this chump didn’t see the writing on the wall. 

What’s that you say?  Oh, you thought I was talking about the Democratic primary?  Well, actually, I’m talking about watching my brother-in-law Matt kick people’s asses at Guitar Hero last night.  They never seem to know when to just throw in the towel.  So he has to play all of “Through Fire and Flames” every single time, even after it’s clear to everyone that it’s a total effing beating.

Oh, and Hillary should quit already.

(Matt: Yes, you are Barack Obama in this analogy.  Your mom would be so proud!) 

(Click to embiggen.)

That’s right.  I’ve cloned myself.  So now you know the secret behind my productivity.  The cats are out of the bag.  (Those are some good lookin’ cats, huh?)

Our coaches always encouraged us to take the high road; “Ignore them,” he’d say.  He didn’t want our team to be involved in the kind of unsportsmanlike conduct that could diminish our victory.  “If you have to do something,” he told us, “just point over there.”  As he did this, he pointed to the stadium’s scoreboard.  “Point over there and say, ‘Scoreboard, baby.’”

The “scoreboard” line was great for a number of reasons.  Not only did it provide our team a way to respond without sinking to our opponents’ level, it really pissed them off because there’s no arguing with it.  The scoreboard doesn’t lie.  Needless to say, the simple retort was a team favorite.

Last night, Hillary Clinton won both the Ohio and Texas primaries.  This modest success can be attributed, at least in part, to the reprehensible way that she’s run her campaign in the past week or so.  Negative attacks, fear mongering, and the art of “working the refs” seem to be the key plays in her playbook lately.  The delegate counts are still being tallied, but it looks as if Hillary will emerge with a slim lead on the night.

Here’s the thing.  Obama started the night with a 159 pledged delegate lead.  The best Hillary can hope for is to shave about one to three delegates off of that.  In fact, Hillary would need to win all of the remaining contests by substantial (read: unrealistic) margins to close Obama’s lead.

This one’s over, but she just hasn’t figured it out yet.

Scoreboard, baby.

(Cross-posted at dailykos.com)