Alone With Two Children: Nook, Nookie, Lookee

Since this last Monday, Tomoko has been leaving for work early and returning home late. This last for three days, at which point she left town on a two night work trip. Needless to say, things have been rather harried in my household as a result. A sign of my not having things totally together? JP, last night during dinner: “Breakfast for dinner? Awesome!” (I then pass the syrup).

Anyway, it was during this period of over-taxed parenting that I discovered a use for the Nook JP’s grandmother just bought him: it speaks! Or, actually, what it does is read, out loud, on demand, which is good when the baby is screaming, JP is whining, and all I want to do is watch television and weep.

I can set JP up with this evil little device and let it read to him…so that I don’t have to. Can anything be more wrong? Can anything be more right?

I…ask…you.

Not only does this device ruin any possible attachment that JP might have toward actual paper books–it also allows me to avoid bonding with my child by reading to him.

Nice! Don’t you just love expensive electronic devices that play to your baser urges?

One thing this whole Nook thing has been calling up in my brain, (with my wife out of town) is nookie. Which leads to nookie-cookie, because I am a three-year-old. Which then leads to the punchline of a joke that used to literally slay me when I was in second grade: lookee, lookee, balls on hookee!

The only problem was that I couldn’t remember the joke that went with the punchline. So I looked it up (thank you totally random forums.dealmac.com): “Three prisoners trying to escape jump over a barbed wire fence, first two are silent, last guy screams and they get caught. When asked why he screamed he looks up at the top of the fence and says “Looky, Looky…”

Which actually doesn’t sound like the joke I used to know. But it’s still funny.

Published by Theodore

Theodore Ross is an editor of Harper’s Magazine. His writing has appeared in Harper’s, Saveur, Tin House, the Mississippi Review, and (of course), the Vietnam News. He grew up in New York City by way of Gulfport, MS, and as a teen played the evil Nazi, Toht, in Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation. He lives with his son, J.P. in Brooklyn, and is currently working on a book about Crypto-Jews.

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2 Comments

  1. teddy teddy teddy the nook read aloud is for when you are not there and cannot read to him and to teach him that being alone with a book is a good thing. it is not intended toilet you watch espn ad nauseum. it may be used when ellie is crying .

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