Saturday, July 11, 2009

Nice Talking to You

There is a fine art to having a conversation when you have a young child around. However, I will admit that it takes a little while to figure out what that art is. Certainly the tricks I learned to allow for conversation while dealing with my son were not the same tricks that worked with my daughter. Nevertheless, the joke of today’s reprint in For Better or For Worse is that Anne Nichols appears not have learned those tricks yet with her boy Christopher. She seems to have the expectation that her son, even as young as he is, can follow instructions like “find something to do” and “go and play”. Any parent of a 1-year-old can tell you statements like that are ridiculous. The usual trick is to find something for the child to do, so he can stay near you, but not interrupt you. Depending on the child, those things will differ. I remember my son was in such a foul mood in most of the first several months of his life, my wife and I used to have to “juice him up for visitations”. He was usually in a pretty good mood after he had been fed and diapered, so we would intentionally do that just before a visit. That might give us 30 – 60 minutes. Beyond that point, it was going to be iffy. As he got older, that time extended. Nevertheless, he was quite old before we could say to him, “Go and play”. Now that I think about it, we never said that. We always had to make sure he was settled somewhere he was happy before we could even think about conversation.

This strip falls into the “I have that exact same problem” category. What makes the strip are the little details. Elly’s coffee cup disappears after panel 1. Anne’s coffee cup disappears after panel 6. The coffee pot is in constant movement from panel to panel, spinning and turning. The plate of cookies moves closer and closer to Elly from panel to panel until is it right beside Elly, who has a cookie in her hand. It is no surprise that once we see Elly eating a cookie, in the next panel the plate of cookies is gone. I also like Elly’s protective stance over her coffee pot and sugar bowl, when Christopher starts waving his spoon in the air. However, the best part of all is Elly’s eye roll in panel 7. I don’t know why she’s so upset. When they do talk, the conversation centers on Connie Poirier’s love life and how Elly doesn't want to be a mom.

2 Comments:

Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

howard,

Nevertheless, the joke of today’s reprint in For Better or For Worse is that Anne Nichols appears not have learned those tricks yet with her boy Christopher. She seems to have the expectation that her son, even as young as he is, can follow instructions like “find something to do” and “go and play”. Any parent of a 1-year-old can tell you statements like that are ridiculous. The usual trick is to find something for the child to do, so he can stay near you, but not interrupt you.

This is yet another example of how Lynn's being able to draw things she's seen despite not understanding them comes in handy; that's because this week's Coffee Talk will be dedicated to reminding us that other first-time mothers have been in Annie's shoes. As for Elly's eye-roll, it will be explained as her being impatient with a rookie.

10:28 PM  
Blogger howard said...

...this week's Coffee Talk will be dedicated to reminding us that other first-time mothers have been in Annie's shoes.-

The strip hits that idea pretty well and I can understand the relationship.

As for Elly's eye-roll, it will be explained as her being impatient with a rookie.-

Unfortunately, in order for this to work, we have to ignore all the other times when Anne and Elly got together with their kids and managed to have long conversations. Or I could just consider this another example of the Sundayverse, where the characters don't act the same as they do in the daily strip.

7:24 AM  

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