Baby Einstein on the Beach

Two posts ago, I mentioned that we, with Clara as a part of our Nielsen rating demographic, are a Baby Einstein family. For those unfamiliar with the product line of educational DVDs, let me clear up something that I wouldn’t had known had I not become a member of their frequent viewing audience.

Firstly, Baby Einstein does not feature smaller, miniature versions of history’s great minds and artists. It’s not like Muppet Babies, where you can throw on a diaper and dock some height so that we can all enjoy a smaller version of an established cadre of great characters. There isn’t a baby Albert Einstein running around saying adorable things with a German accent and trying to explain relativity to a puppy named Patches. It’s probably best that the designers decided to go in a different direction. After all, Einstein is known for his trademark wild, gray hair and mustache.

That would make for one creepy baby.

As for the content, for those unfamiliar with their work, Baby Einstein has a subject matter aimed to teach small children important words. You know, things like colors. Shapes. Numbers. It makes sense to start with these basic building blocks of our language. When I took Spanish I in high school, the fifth chapter of our books was about the environment. Apparently, once I had school supplies, places, colors, and family members down, it was time to protect our world. I kid you not – one of el vocabulario redacta was the Spanish words for “nuclear winter.”

Apparently, the outlook from one textbook publishing company for the next century’s a bit bleak.

But back to the programming. By method of repetition, and a combination of photography and puppetry, Clara is now reading on an 8th grade level. She found “A Separate Peace” overrated, longs to read other Shakespeare besides Julius Caesar, and can actually understand many of the articles in Financial Times. Who knew all it would take is a couple of hippo hand puppets teaching the horse hand puppets that if you have two of something, you can share.

And man, these things are addictive. I would rather watch Baby Noah teach me about the animals of the world than watch Everybody Loves Raymond. Do you know what they teach babies in Baby Noah? They teach you “wombat.” Yes, in the Outback chapter, you learn to identify kangaroos, koalas, geckos, and yes, WOMBATS.

This kid is going to know wombats at 13 months? I’ll clear some shelf space for her Fields Medal now.

One of the fun perks of working for Baby Einstein is crediting various historical figures as tops in their respective fields by naming their expertise after them, when it comes to children’s DVDs. To date, it appears that Einstein, Beethoven, Mozart, Wordsworth, McDonald, Noah, Monet, da Vinci, and many others. I’d like to take the opportunity to honor some other people with their own videos here.

Baby Nordberg: Learning Cartography
Baby Mellor: Learning Fantasy Sports
Baby Caro: Learning Colonial History
Baby Reif: Learning Automotives
Baby Harford: Learning Relationships
Baby Jester: Learning Cinema

And …

Baby Yelito: Learning Journey