I was thinking the same thing. There is no way Bette could have gotten Angelica on the potty and then into bed for her nap THAT fast. I have a personal record of a minute  and a half at daycare (and satisfied kids), but that is WITHOUT the obligatory reading and/or singing.

 

The Way The Cookie Crumbles

No Borders Allowed

My favorite parenting moment of the season opener was the chat that Bette had with Angelica on the way into the house for the potty and the nap. It was just too cute! I may have been too busy cooing over that or checking out Jennifer Beals in a tank top to notice how quickly Bette re-emerged from the house.

Maybe my memory's fading on me, but I thought that Shane had made a promise to Jared about Shay in the final episode of the fourth season. I think they were in the Planet, with Paige looking on from an adjacent table, and Shane said they--Paige, Jared, Shay and Shane--could be like a family. Am I imagining that or did it really happen? At any rate, I was a little taken aback by Paige's reaction to the whole thing.

Two questions...not which necessitate answers right now, but might be good topics for future vlogs..

1. At the outset of the episode, Bette mentions that they have a friend who's been teaching Angelica sign language. When she was on "The View" yesterday, Jennifer Beals mentioned teaching sign language to her own daughter (too cute!). It seems like there are a lot of products on the market now for teaching children to sign--any experience with any of them?

2. This is kind of a weird question...you mentioned your son's routine before napping included music and my nephew's certainly the same way. I'm interested in purchasing some new music for him, so he's not obliged to continue to listen to my iTunes playlist, but I don't want to buy just anything. I'd love to have some music with teachable qualities--any recommendations?

Great vlog, as always.

We didn't teach our son to sign, although I know a lot of parents are doing that these days. That actually leads to another criticism of the episode: so many parents are doing it, even when they aren't deaf and don't have deaf relatives or friends, that it seemed funny for the preschool administrator to assume that Angelica's signing meant she had a deaf relative. But I suppose that's getting fussy.

As far as music, a good place to start would be the recommendations made by children's musicians Erin Lee and Marci, whose song "Fine by Me" we use in our vlog. They've been doing a monthly guest post on Mombian with recommendations for kids' music on various themes. They're good about choosing songs (by both themselves and others) that are kid-friendly but adult-tolerable.

I recommend both of their albums, too, which can be found on their Web site, Gottaplay.org. (And here's an article I did about them a while back, which should give you a sense of their musical philosophy.)

--
Dana Rudolph
Mombian: Sustenance for Lesbian Moms
http://www.mombian.com

shane promise page's kid that shaye would come back and they would all live together.  as much as i enjoyed getting the old shane back my only problem with it was that she involved that poor kid's emotions.  something about that doesn't sit right with me.

the potty nap situation... well either there was a nanny inside taking care of those things or maybe we are supposed to assume that more time had passed than actual screen time.  when i watched it i was also like whoa that was quick!   that kid is really cute but she is growing a lot faster than the timeline of the show also.  has 4 years really gone by since Tina had her baby?...i don't think so.

 I think shane's exact words when talking to paige's kid were "How would you like to have shay as a brother" and then something about living together, which, for a kid, sounds a lot like a promise.