Jumping in Muddy Puddles

For quite a long time now, on no-longer-Noggin, in between shows they run little snippets of other shows, little educational skits and the like to fill the time that would normally be filled by commercials when the regular programming would air on Nickelodeon. Usually the snippets of shows came from full length programs that they-should-have-stuck-with-Noggin isn't running in their entirety yet. The two that pop immediately to mind are Pocoyo and Peppa Pig. Both are British shows (Stephen Fry does the narrator's voice for Pocoyo and several names I recognize have done voices on Peppa). By in large, these shows are FAR better than most of the dreck they've got on . . . fine, I'll just call it Nick Jr., even though this confuses it with the early morning segment on Nickelodeon of the same name, but, for some reason, they didn't show full episodes of either.

Until about two months ago when they started showing Peppa Pig (still no Pocoyo, which is weird because I've seen it on the Spanish channel). And over these past two months, the show has risen in my esteem to the number #2 spot of favorite pre-K programs (still behind Gabba, which despite daily viewings STILL doesn't annoy me all that much).

Yes, I know. That was a long, drawn out way of getting to Peppa Pig and the fact that we watch and enjoy it. Deal with it. That's just how I role.

The show is quite clever and the characters are amusing. The parents do and say things that aren't THAT patronizing to the children--making them seem slightly more real than the usual parents on these shows who, if they're available at all, are little more than reinforcement machines there only to encourage their children to go out and do something entirely inappropriate for their age. And sometimes they say things that I find genuinely hilarious. Daddy Pig is fond of saying, "I'm something of an expert" about pretty much anything that he doesn't know anything about, usually with comic results (my favorite so far was when he tried to read a letter from Peppa's pen pal in France, carefully pronouncing all of the French words after announcing that he was something of an expert on French--then, after reading it all, he declares that "It's no good. It's nonsense." Which, being French, of course it is).

Plus, both of our kids love the show. Norah even laughs at it pretty regularly. Usually she just kind of watches what's on but doesn't respond much to it beyond pointing at a character and saying, "Yook! A Mouse!" (this for Mickey Mouse), but with this one she will laugh at one thing or another as if she's actually understanding what's going on. Pretty impressive, really, considering Gabe really only starting understanding what he was watching on TV about a year ago.

So I would highly recommend the show to anyone who is imprisoned in the cage of pre-K programming. Sadly, they only have one DVD available here in the states right now, and the show is only on weekends on Nick Jr.

I'm sure I had a point I was getting to.

Oh yes. Muddy Puddles. One of their favorite things to do on Peppa Pig--because they are pigs--is to "jump in muddy puddles." As the narrator declares quite regularly, "Everyone loves to jump in muddy puddles."

So, Sunday, after the kids ran the sprinkler for awhile, we had our own muddy puddles for the kids to jump around in. They loved it. I'm still doing the laundry because they ended up needing two baths and went through three pairs of clothes each because every time we got them cleaned up and went back outside, as soon as we turned our backs on them, they immediately went back into the puddles. Good times.

I didn't get many pictures of them, but I did get two videos. Still, this single picture says quite a lot.

Playing in the sprinkler. I got a little video of them just playing in the sprinkler before they moved on to the mud.

And the puddle playing. All told, I think they spent about thirty minutes jumping around and slopping in the puddles (counting all three times they went back in). Pretty good play life for a bit of water and a few ruined feet of grass.