{"id":63,"date":"2010-01-28T22:56:49","date_gmt":"2010-01-29T02:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/?p=63"},"modified":"2010-01-28T23:01:54","modified_gmt":"2010-01-29T03:01:54","slug":"twitter-tweens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/?p=63","title":{"rendered":"Twitter Tweens"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new parent asked me the other day what they had to look forward to as their little darling grew up.\u00a0 They\u2019d heard of the \u201cterrible twos\u201d and all that, but what about the long view?\u00a0 How are they when they\u2019re 11, like the Human Tape Recorder, or 9, like Number One Son?\u00a0 (They didn\u2019t ask about the Reigning Queen of Pink, presumably because they can see that<\/strong> from where they\u2019re standing.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

I presented my answers with the usual caveat, to wit: there\u2019s \u201c9-yr-old boy\u201d and then there\u2019s Number One Son.\u00a0\u00a0 Remember, crazy means not having to sweat the details, such as clean underwear<\/a><\/span>, monetary valuations, and most social graces. \u00a0That said, I can provide (and am happy to detail here as a public service) some details into what life is like living with kids aged 11, 9, and 7.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t have kids but you\u2019re thinking about it, and you\u2019d like to see what it\u2019s like, the Internet now makes it possible to simulate the, um, experience.\u00a0 \u00a0Just living with anyone, never mind the ADD types, under the age of 14, is to live in the bottom of a permanent, live-feed twitter well.\u00a0 They\u2019re walking twitter accounts!<\/p>\n

First, sign up for a Twitter feed.\u00a0 Second, subscribe to the tweets of every single English-speaking person you can find.\u00a0 Third, for good measure, subscribe to the tweets of at least 5 percent of the non-English speaking world as well.\u00a0 Trust me on this.<\/p>\n

OK, got that all set up?\u00a0 Now get a text-to-speech application, set it for automatic, and turn up the volume to just past where it\u2019s comfortable.\u00a0 Now break the knob off the volume control and throw that sucker away \u2013 like the lid to bottle of good Scotch, you won\u2019t be needing THAT.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ho.\u00a0 Ly.\u00a0 Shit.\u00a0\u00a0 They talk all the time, about everything, and nothing, at FULL VOLUME.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s because they\u2019re so deaf from listening to each other, or because they\u2019re just trying to be heard over the din.\u00a0 \u00a0(There\u2019s a reason they learned their ABCs the hard way<\/a><\/span>.)<\/p>\n

OK, if you haven\u2019t lost your mind in the first 5 minutes of this exercise, it\u2019s because we haven\u2019t gotten to the hard part yet.\u00a0 The hard part is that it is absolutely a matter of life and death that you pay attention to about 1.5 percent of everything you hear.\u00a0 You will never know WHICH 1.5 percent it is, though, and there are very few cues \u00a0to tell you when one of the important bits is coming.\u00a0 You\u2019ll need to develop a mental low-level Twitter Tween filter to make sure you hear the word \u201cbleeding\u201d among the \u201cim going to the bathroom oh my god I need to go the bathroom its my turn to play the wii I want the remote can I have another sandwich its my turn I\u2019ll use the upstairs one shut up no you shut up ow now its my turn hey mom she hit him non I didn\u2019t and hes bleeding no I\u2019m not shut up oh my god I have to go the bathroom\u201d montage of sound that assaults you every minute of every day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Catch all that?\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 \u00a0As I typed this, I decided that there must be a more concise word for \u201cmental Twitter Tween filter.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0And so there is.\u00a0 The word is headache.<\/p>\n

And in case you were thinking about being clever \u2013 forget it.\u00a0 I saw you just now, you put the volume control in your pocket instead of throwing it away like I told you.\u00a0 Do you know what happens these days when we try to remind them of their, um, ABCs<\/a><\/span>?<\/p>\n

BUMD:\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cWould you PLEASE stop the incessant noise for one brief, shining, quiet moment?\u201d
\nReigning Queen of Pink: \u00a0\u00a0\u201cBut Daddy, don’t you want your child laughing?\u201d<\/p>\n

OH!\u00a0 She\u2019s so good with her stiletto, I didn\u2019t even see the blade \u2013 until it was stuck in my chest. \u00a0\u00a0They say silence is golden.\u00a0 Maybe I can convince her that silence is really a bright shade of pink.\u00a0 In the meantime, where\u2019d I put that aspirin?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you don\u2019t have kids but you\u2019re thinking about it, and you\u2019d like to see what it\u2019s like, the Internet now makes it possible to simulate the, um, experience. Just living with anyone, never mind the ADD types, under the age of 14, is to live in the bottom of a permanent, live-feed twitter well. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3,5,6],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions\/66"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}