Babble

SADIE (five years old): Bunnies are making lemonade and other bunnies are paying for it. Max tasted it and said, "Delicious!" But the girl bunnies won't let him have more unless he pays for it. Max is using a helicopter and a robot to try to get the lemonade. Then he tries to trade for it with his ants and acorns. Disgusting! They said he has to get a nickel instead. So he makes an ants and acorn pancake stand, but no one buys any, until Grandma, and she bought it just to be nice. Then Max bought the last glass of lemonade.
WOLF (twelve years old) : Now Ruby and Louise are having a rummage sale and Max keeps hiding his sister's toys under a table. Now he's hiding under the table, and the girls find him, and he has to give the toys up.
LISA (grown-up): Why doesn't he just play with his own toys?
WOLF: You know how little kids can get agitated by other people's stuff. Now Grandma comes and buys them and takes the toys home and invites Max over.
SADIE: In this one, Ruby and Louis are making a magic show and they told Max to be the audience. But he's hiding in the magic box. Now here comes Grandma.
LISA: This is the same story over and over, with different details.
SADIE: And Max says one word over and over in each one, like "delicious!" or "magic!"
LISA: This isn't too simplistic for you, Wolf?
WOLF: I don't feel worried when I watch it, because there's not so many questions or complications to it. Max doesn't get to eat or drink or do anything at the beginning — only at the very end. I feel like that in life. There's lots I can't do. Sadie is more happy with her toys and friends and I'm always thinking of something different I want to do other than what I'm doing. And I feel like sneaking around and being tricky and stuff, like Max.
SADIE: I'm like Ruby. Except I don't get mad or sad when Wolf's hiding frogs all over the house for hide and seek, tricking me.
— Lisa Carver, Wolf (twelve), Sadie (five)

In this mockumentary, a kid rock band starts down the road to stardom.

SADIE: Are you going to close your eyes when they're naked, Wolfgang?
LISA: The name is just a joke. No one's naked. Actually, this whole documentary may be a joke. You think those girls really camped out all night on the sidewalk to be first to buy those kids' new CD?
SADIE and WOLF: Noooo.
LISA: What if someone had kidnapped those girls off the sidewalk?! And do you believe these adults saying they learn everything from the kids?
SADIE: They're lying.
WOLF: They just want to make people happy. That's why they say those things.
LISA: Did they make you happy?
WOLF: Um . . . a little? Well, honestly, I'm bored. But I don't want those brothers to know that, after they worked so hard on this movie.
LISA: If someone makes a bad movie, they make a bad movie. Can't protect them from that.
SADIE: They made a bad movie.
LISA: Uma Thurman and Julianne Moore are pretending to be fans now! Do you guys know who they are?
SADIE and WOLF: No.
LISA: This is so self-indulgent.
WOLF: I'd like to be on stage like them someday, but I think I'd sing a better song.
LISA: What would you sing about?
WOLF: I'd sing what I dreamt about. Aliens and stuff.
SADIE: My dreams are about crazy seals. "Crazy seals! Crazy, crazy seals! Crazy seals . . . are . . . running!"
SADIE and WOLF: "Crazy seals! Crazy seals! Running all over the place!"
LISA: Quick, someone call Quentin Tarantino!
— Lisa Carver, Wolf (twelve), Sadie (five)

I had always remembered the melancholy tone of the 1973 Hanna-Barbera animated musical adaptation of Charlotte's Web, but in viewing the DVD recently with my two-year old daughter, I was blown away by its prescience.

"People are very gullible. They'll believe anything they see in print," says Charlotte (voiced by Debbie Reynolds), the small, gray barn spider with a knack for PR. The story's genius lies in its simplicity; it is about the power of words and loyalty, but also the illusion that fame is equivalent to immortality. I was initially concerned that the subject matter would be too heavy for a toddler; that themes of life and death unfolding so matter-of-factly would be overwhelming (sidebar: I know farm life is hard, but what's with all the angry farm broads?). But as I sit there weeping every damn time we watch it, my daughter, unburdened by these larger issues, is merely charmed by the bouncy Sherman Brothers songs, the retro-style animation, and by truly adorable Wilbur (whom she refers to as "OOU-AHH"). The world can be harsh, but also beautiful and warm, and someday, I hope my daughter does grasp Charlotte's Web's sad and stirring messages. I look forward to sharing the box of tissues. — Nancy Balbirer

LISA: This looks like a cowboys and Indians movie, except it's about the British and the Native Americans.
SADIE: Who are Native Americans?
LISA: They were naked except for, like, bikini bottoms made out of animal skin.
WOLF: I bet they were cold.
LISA: Then the British came and colonized them — meaning they killed them.
WOLF: Are we British?
LISA: No — because we killed them and became free men. Now we go colonize other countries . . . ones whose waterways we want to use, or their oil.
WOLF: Which ones are the nice Indians?
LISA: It's complicated. There's different tribes. The ones with braids are the Mohicans. They're helping the British, who are fighting the French. Then there's a renegade group of Native Americans who don't belong to any tribe — they're a small band of criminals, like a gang. They're the ones with the mohawks. The British have wigs.
SADIE: Which ones are the bad guys?
LISA: Depends on who you ask. In this movie, it's the Mohawks because they kidnapped some Brits. Oh my — the head Mohawk wants to make one of the British gals his squaw!
SADIE: Is that good?
LISA: Well, how would it feel if someone very different from you from another country kidnapped you and forced you to marry him?
WOLF: That sounds pretty cool. If I were kidnapped by a foreign lady, I bet all the different food would be good.
SADIE: Who's that man in the bushes?
LISA: A tortured messenger.
SADIE: I don't like this movie. Too much tying people up and knives.
LISA: That's history for you! See, I find war movies interesting because no one knows who is really on whose side or how anything is going to turn out.
WOLF: Maybe there were storms and they destroyed the food supplies, like a meteor with the dinosaurs, and that's how the Indians became extinct.
LISA: Or maybe men's hearts are black and they would pretend to be the Indians' friends and give them diseased blankets as "gifts."
WOLF: I wish they hadn't killed them all, and I could meet one.
LISA: They didn't get them all. Just killed a way of life. Okay, now the girls are safe in the fort and they're raising the British flag and everyone's happy. Do you think this movie would be different if the Native Americans had won and they were the current dominant culture?
SADIE: Yes, especially for us. We wouldn't be reviewing it. Since I'm a quarter English.

— Lisa Carver, Wolf (twelve), Sadie (five)

Fabulously Fit Moms

If a scarily perky fitness instructor cooing about how your workout is a time to "connect with your cuddly" sounds annoying, I've got news for you: it really, really is. Jennifer Nicole Lee's Fabulously Fit Moms DVD is a slow-moving march through some exercises you can do to get "the body of your dreams" while spending quality time with your baby. The movements themselves are actually fairly effective for building muscle strength and tone — mostly squats, lunges, and push ups — but the program is uninspired and plodding, and Lee's simpering tone gets grating about thirty seconds in. I was horrified to find she offers very little in the way of advice on proper exercise form, instead interjecting lots of advice for how to bond with your child: "make eye contact with your cuddly" and "snap your fingers to make it interesting for baby." Squats and lunges can wreck your body if you don't know what to do, especially if you are holding a nine-to-fifteen-pound infant, and I found myself muttering, "Screw the bonding with baby, what about mommy's knees?"

Bedrest Fitness

Bedrest Fitness, by contrast, has none of the irritating aerobics-Barbie vibe of FFM. Darline Turner-Lee designed her program for pregnant women on bedrest, offering sweet relief to moms-to-be trapped on the pillows for months on end. Turner-Lee has the calm delivery of a physician's assistant, which she is, as well as holding certification from the American College of Sports Medicine. The DVD is heavy on disclaimers and careful explanations, but after the first viewing you could just skip the talking and follow Turner-Lee through the series of movements, which use an elastic band to stretch and tone the whole body. Of course, the workout isn't exactly vigorous, but hey, this is bedrest, and the routine is perfectly designed to keep muscles from turning to jelly without endangering the pregnancy. I'll take the knowledgeable Darline Turner-Lee over the Stepford-ish Jennifer Nicole Lee any day. — Kelly Mills

If you, too, wish to turn your children into stark raving PETA members, Bambi and Black Beauty are the DVDs to show. (Though I'm not sure how much influence movies or mothers have anymore, after my own two basically fired me in this review.)

WOLF: The men are taking Black Beauty away. He doesn't want to leave his gentle meadow.
SADIE: He already has something tied around his nose — why hit him with the whip when he can't even move?
LISA: Some people enjoy inflicting pain on helpless things.
SADIE: They're bad to do that. Now some guys are trying to kill a bunny. One bunny and three men with guns, and fire comes out.
WOLF: It's not nice to kill an animal or treat them bullying.
LISA: Why do you suppose some people are like that?
WOLF: Probably because their moms taught them to be rude.
SADIE: Maybe some people treated them bad, and they felt bad, and now they treat horses bad.
LISA: Animals have no rights in our society.
SADIE: That's bad. Some people don't use their society for love. They use it to kill animals.
LISA: Would you guys say I brainwash you?
WOLF: Uh . . . kind of.
SADIE: What's brainwashing?
LISA: Do I impose my ideas of right and wrong on you instead of letting you make your own decisions — for example, about animal rights?
WOLF: Yes. You tell me about stuff. Sometimes people need to be doing their own work, figuring stuff out themselves. Next review, you can just say a couple things and Sadie and I will say the rest.
SADIE: I already make my decisions.
LISA: I can try to "tell you about stuff," but mostly you guys are just you, and it's luck of the draw what kind of kids a person ends up with. Being kind to helpless creatures is the most important quality to me, and you both totally have that. I might've gotten a horse-whipper! I got lucky with you two.
SADIE: Maybe I'm so kind because of my brother. I wouldn't be happy without Wolfgang. Even though we fight.

-- Lisa Carver, Wolf (twelve), Sadie (four)