There's A New Kid in Town...

...and he has taken over my house. He is an animal rescuer, he has a very famous cousin...Dora the Explorer...and at this moment, he is actually more popular than Princesses with my daughters. In case you don't have a child under 5 in your house, Dora's cousin Diego, the animal rescuer, just got his own show and my girls LOVE it.

Yes, the impossible has happened: instead of asking for princess flicks, the girls are begging for Diego, or as Maggie puts it: "Go, Weygo, Go..Mama...Go, Weygo, Go." Night and day, I hear, "Weygo, Mama, Weygo".

Diego mania has besieged us. Monkeys are no longer simply monkeys, they are "haller monkeys, Mom"; a parrot of the past is a "scarlett macaw, Mom"; and please do not confuse a "rat" with a "three toed sloth". La Nina just might have to launch into a long, convulted discussion of the difference between a "rat" and a "three-toed sloth." As her mother, I find her lectures rather endearing, but I am just not sure what others will make of her authoritative tone. Gotta love nearly 4 year olds!

At the end of each show, there is a quiz about the featured animal and the Magster shocked me yesterday by shouting out every answer correctly about a humpback whale. She knows they live in an Ocean, breath air, dive by arching their backs and something else I can't remember. The good news is the mass merchandising of Diego has not quite caught up with the new kid in town. But given the reaction of my kids to him, it won't be long before a "Rescue Pack", a "Video Watch" and a stuffed "Baby Jaguar" are on someone's birthday wish list.

More good news, I actually hung out with the girls yesterday to check out the show and it isn't bad. I am not a huge fan of kids TV, but this show had some redeeming qualities. It had catchy tunes, (yes, you will be singing...'Rescue pack, comin' to the rescue. Rescue pack, comin' to the rescue'...after one short viewing), educational value, (does it hurt kids to know about animals?) and a can-do attitude that gets the kids involved in helping with the rescues (at one point, both girls were jumping like "red-eyed tree frogs" yesterday).

Perhaps best of all: when I told Maggie I would put on an extra Diego if she went pee-pee in the potty, she did. And joyfully ran from the room squealing "WEEEYYGOOOO". I may be seeing a lot of this new kid in the next couple of weeks.