High Maintenance Mom

I realize I'm a little late with news of the Backyardigans on Nick Jr. but it's worth a mention in case you haven't seen it. The episodes are about four or five animals (a moose, hippo, penguin, unique animal, and sometimes the new kangaroo on the block) that play in their backyards making up exciting adventures. Each episode has a different music theme and the dancing is very catchy...

This evening we watched The Quest for the Flying Rock. It was the first time I saw my now three year-old son dance to the music, disco in this episode, and I also found the dancing fun to try to copy. The characters each have their own personalities (see TV Tome). It's fun to watch how my son reacts to the character interactions and to listen to my husband sing the songs around the house. In the past month we've been hearing a lot of, xxxx is my friend, I don't like yyyyy, I only like xxxx. I understand that it's a part of growing up, but it's still difficult to hear kids be mean. The Backyardigans does a really good job showing young kids playing together, which helps all of us. It's also Canadian, which I suspected while watching the Mounties in The Snow Fort (my husband wanted to add that he suspected it was Nelvana Limited, but then he's Canadian).

We've also been working through a long week of nightmares where my son would scream from about 3-5 AM about slugs. In It's Great to be a Ghost Pablo, Tyrone, Uniqua pretend to be ghosts and try to scare Tasha. Tyrone couldn't figure out how to scare Tasha and my son started talking about how he wasn't sure if Tyrone was going to be able to figure out what to do. I enjoyed watching him interact with the tv and liked how the show handled the idea of trying to scare a friend and then eventually scaring them. My son was happy that Tyrone was able to figure out how to scare Tasha. We're looking forward to many of the upcoming episodes, in particular, Super Heroes vs. Super Villains.

Nick Jr. has activities and song sheets. You can also listen to the songs on Nick Jr. radio (click on Playtime and then radio). TV Tome has a good description of the show and episode lists.

There is currently one book, Here Come the Backyardigans! (Backyardigans, The), available at Amazon.com and several others you can preorder: Pirate Treasure (Backyardigans, The), Race to the Tower of Power (Backyardigans, The), The Soccer Ball Mystery (Backyardigans, The), Stuck at Sea! (Backyardigans, The), Castaways! (Backyardigans, The), Meet Pablo! (Backyardigans, The), and Jungle Colors (Backyardigans, The) (Click here for all Backyardigans Books). We were hoping to find a CD like the Dora Songs. Since they are available on the Nick Jr. website, I assume that one will be out soon. Let me know if you hear of one.