What are we teaching our kids?

On a typical day, I pick Matis up from Gan at 3:45 and take him to the park for around an hour. When we get home after the park, he tends to be difficult and fussy. Recently, I was looking for "The wheels on the bus" on youtube to distract him and I found a 55 minute video of different nursery rhymes. Matis was absolutely fascinated and sat still (aside from showing off his dance moves) for the entire video! 

This video has become my go to method for calming him down when he's throwing a tantrum (I know, I'm horrible) and I've been watching a lot of it with him. Listening to the words of the songs, I couldn't help but wonder what the heck the person who made them was thinking. Here are a few of my thoughts on some of the more popular songs: 

1. 5 Little Monkeys

So, you got a bunch of monkeys jumping on a bed, one falls off and bumps his head. The mother calls the doctor and the doctor says "no more monkeys jumping on the bed". Hold up! What kind of medical school did this doctor go to? What about the concussion protocol? I'm sure the mother didn't call for this doctor to preach about her parenting choices. Now there's 4 monkeys jumping on the bed, which begs the question; what happened to the fifth one. Did he learn his lesson and stop jumping, or maybe he died? After all, he might've had an undiagnosed concussion and his doctor is an idiot. "Five little monkeys jumping on the bed, one fell off and now he's dead? Momma called the doctor and she said you're gonna be hearing from Geffrey Feiger". Anyway, continuing this gruesome tale another monkey falls off the bed and apparently the momma called the same doctor who said "no more monkeys jumping on the bed". At this point you'd think the mother would yell at the doctor and demand proper medical attention, but she doesn't and again she doesn't take his advice and the other three monkeys are still jumping on the bed! Now the third monkey falls off the bed and the momma calls the doctor again. At this point the doctor should be yelling at the mother and calling child protective services, but no, self-righteous doctor isn't done preaching yet "no more monkeys jumping on the bed". Another monkey falls off the bed and momma calls the doctor. Now I'm taking the doctor's side, what a patient doctor he/she must be to answer this lady's calls, even though she constantly ignores his advice! Yet again she fails to listen to him and the last monkey falls off and presumably dies. Moral of the story, monkeys need to stick to their natural habitats and stay off the beds! 

2. 5 Little Ducks 

This song is about a mother duck who lets her five children go out one day, they swim off and only four of them come back. The next day she repeats the exercise and only three come back. The next day she lets them out again. At this point I'm yelling at the screen "No, you idiot mother, you're gonna lose another duck!" WTH is she thinking? but no, she doesn't listen to me and what do you know only two ducks came back. What do you think happens next? Does mother duck learn her lesson and not let her kids go to a dangerous place where they're likely to disappear? Haha, not this Einstein. She lets them out yet again and loses another duck. Now she's only got one duck left. Obviously she's going to spend the rest of her life protecting her only child, right? Nope, maybe she got depressed about losing the other four and figured she'd be better off with none, because she let the last duck go out and disappear. The next day Sad mother duck went out. "Sad"? Who the heck gave her the right to be sad? Remorseful, guilty, neglectful, stupid, I can deal with, but sad? Sorry, I'm gonna save my tears for someone more worthy. Then comes the BS ending, all five ducks came back. I guess it's better than the truth, that they were all killed and served to some rich guy at a fancy restaurant, but who would believe that they'd go back to such a mother?

3. Humpty Dumpty

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again."

First of all, what were his parents thinking giving him a name like that?! This story used to give me nightmares as a kid. Do kids really need to hear about dismemberment? Why are the horses trying to put him back together, that sounds like a horrible plan? 

4. This Old Man 

I don't know what Knick-Knack is, but why is this old man playing it all over a kid's body? He sounds really creepy. Doesn't sound likely that he'd be playing it up in heaven after all he did to that poor kid. 

5. Three Little Kittens

The three little kittens lost their mittens and went to their mother crying and admitting to their mistake. The mother calls them "naughty kittens" and tells them they get no pie. 20 years later these kittens will be in therapy, trying to deal with their self esteem issues and the mother will be back home complaining about stupid therapists who blame everything on the mothers. 

I guess the bottom line is nobody cares as long as the kid stops crying :-) 

Sold!

When we decided to spend this year in Israel, we were fairly confident that we would be able to sell our house before we moved. The problem was we were so busy doing other things, that we didn't really do anything to market the house. The smart thing to do would've been to hire a real estate broker, but it was hard for me to stomach paying thousands of dollars in commission to someone who most likely would be selling my house to someone I already know.

We had a lot of interest in the house and a lot of people said they would put in offers, but people knew we were moving and assumed we were desperate and thought they could get the house below market value by waiting us out. I understand that everyone wants a bargain and I'm not going to go on a rant (although it is tempting) about the horrible (IMO) things that people are willing to do to save a few dollars.

It was hard moving before the house was sold, but we had a number of good verbal offers that were promising to send over contracts any day, so we weren't really worried. Long story short, not long after we moved, friends of ours looked at the house and really wanted to buy it. We had a couple offers we were working on that were better financially, but after all we went through with people playing games and trying to take advantage of us, we figured it was best to deal with someone we could trust. It's tricky negotiating with friends, especially when you're on opposite sides of the world and sending messages through Facebook. Fortunately we were able to bring in a realtor to help us work through it and we agreed to a deal.

As could be expected, as soon as we signed the accepted offer, we got a big increase in interest in the house. People were calling claiming to be willing to pay our full asking price and even after we told them we were under contract, they continued to check in every couple weeks hoping the house would be available again. It took a long time to actually close on the house, but we finally got it done last week! It's impossible to know what would've happened if we waited a couple weeks longer before accepting an offer, it seems likely we would've walked away with more money, but I'm choosing to be happy with this deal anyway. Extra money is definitely nice, but we're happy that we were able to sell to someone we know and we're really happy not to have to worry about paying utilities, insurance and property taxes for an empty house any longer!

As nice as it is to be done with the burden of paying the bills, it's sad to part with a house we put so much time and effort into and we will miss it. Here's some pictures of the house from the time we bought it, until we moved. I think you'll be able to tell which pictures are "before" and which are "after".