My co-workers wondered what was going on as "The Constipation Issue" had me in tears of laughter...

some mojave 3 and/or calexico! maybe even some iron and wine!

Bob-the-baby likes country music.

I blame the parents ? you did move to Riverton. That?s close to Gore isn?t it? Go with Che?s alt-country suggestion, maybe a bit of the Alabama 3 for good measure.

Prediction: Bob is going to be the most emotionally sophisticated baby ever. He might also have?

I've come to the conclusion that most?

Apparently that constipation stuff isn't that uncommon – I've heard of a baby that only goes once every?

1. OMG things are so good, sleeping all night, getting his/her drivers license at 2, knows geometry at 3, sitting for their masters?

Handy hint: Print out this post and keep a copy in your wallet and bedside drawer, then you'll always have a handy contraceptive when you need it!

I always thought that this was the best advertisement for birth control :)

And be glad it's only country (I like both kinds of music, country AND western). Some fool emailed me Wild Boys by Duran Duran and the?

Robyn Gallagher wrote:

Handy hint: Print out this post and keep a copy in your wallet and bedside drawer, then you'll always have a?

but do be afraid to try the supersuckers, "musta been high". because you will never stop listening to it.

The starting point, I think, was singing ?England Swings Like a Pendulum Do? while trying to get her to go to the toilet.

No I don?t know why. Sleep deprivation, and resultant brain?

'Drop Kick Me Jesus through the Goalposts of Life' by Bobby Bare is a classic.

Its here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO5Y1OuQIxo

'Spiders and Snakes' and 'Wildwood Weed' (both by Jim Stafford) are also pretty damn good.

I've had thankfully little experience living with babies, but when I did a student exchange my host family's one-year-old was nuts for The Macarena.

All this drama and only one kid, it is better once you have two, and they can take turns in waking each other. Despite never seeming to sleep, I have a preschool academic?

(/me takes all the pain away)

"Burning Ring of Fire"

I'm sure YouTube would prefer a toddler singing along to Fulsom Prison Blues.

Just trying to match the tone you describe, have you tried Buddy Holly?

I hardly know anything about country,

But Bob obviously does. He has latched on to the motherlode from which all the alluvial has spread. he almost certainly enjoys the redemptive chorus,

"I'm going where there's no Depression
To a better land that's free from care
I'll leave this world of?

"Our daughter can quietly amuse herself for hours watching her baby-mobile," claims a member of our Plunket group. "We're actually getting too much sleep now that the baby's arrived," says another....

What a bunch of f**king show-offs.?

Bob usually gives a huge guffaw of laughter when he hears that last line — a response which, I fear, is already not a good sign.

I suspect the angelic-faced child is imagining the millions he?

I suspect the angelic-faced child is imagining the millions he will be awarded when he sues his dreadful father for defamation of character. Clearly no-one who looks so sweet could be guilty of the dreadful acts you claim

I will appear for the defense. I held Bob once. After he'd?

I'm sure that a strong willed, characterful?

Deep in conversation with Adrian the Rabbit.

Awww... In twenty years, that pose is going to be creepy but until them keep playing him the original boradway cast album of Gypsy. if Ethel Merman in fully roar doesn't stun the hairless ape into a submissive torpor, nothing will.

It usually takes kids a few years to work out what kind of music will wind you up and so Bob is clearly?

Interestingly, as reported in the Bob/Rodney post, midwives do say "Oh that's perfectly normal" a lot. Given that?

Actually he's a good little tyke really. Most of the time. The last few days have been an?

My experience... is that parents fall into two categories.

1. OMG things are so good...

2. OMG it's so stressful...

In my experience, the second people are the same ones who have two hour conversations in life about how busy they are and how stressful that is,?

"We're actually getting too much sleep now that the baby's arrived."

That's one way of putting it I suppose. Another way might be "we can't get anything done because every minute not spent attending to the baby's needs is being spent sleeping." Been there, know the feeling.

"A child prodigy who was one of the youngest students to be admitted to Oxford University is now working as a prostitute, it has been claimed. "

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10501268

I just thought child prodigies never achieved anything in life.

Shep, you dont think that might be one of those annually recurring "special date related" stories do you?

If I hadn't heard it on the news last night, I would have thought that National's $50 crime levy was related to today's date.

Shep, you dont think that might be one of those annually recurring "special date related" stories do you?

if it is, its a terribly unfunny one.

Sad.

"A child prodigy who was one of the youngest students to be admitted to Oxford University is now working as a prostitute, it has been claimed. "

Whereas the only qualification you need to whore for the Srews of the World is functional illiteracy and a dead spot in the?

Stuff a little more up to date:

Gillian Welch

The Greencards (Graham's got a review, but I can't find it)

Nickle Creek (not Nickleback, you'd prefer the Wiggles).

Maybe when he's a bit older he can graduate to the outlaw?

No such thing with my younger daughters tho'. They barely used words at all at?

But most of my contemporaries' homes had the magic three bottles on the bench for the semi-daily dose – Milk of Magnesia, Califig (California syrup?

Not the exact words we learned, but close enough.

led to the inevitable t shirt:
'Heinz Meanz Fartz'

Learnt at primary school in the '70's. I heard about rationing from my parents but it was before my time... :)

That's what I like about PAS – the learned conversations, delving into social history and poetry.

Just marking time till Colin reappears.

As the TV2 promo material says:

"But it's really all just an excuse for a relentless succession of gags. Even if many are now a little dated, their frequency makes up?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGe-OT5DkTg

Now that he's out of his Rodney Hide phase, Bob has returned to his original good looks

He's gone for the Paul Henry look I think?

Our goes for extended bouts of temperatures, but in exchange when things are healthy-like, we get instant putdowns without a peep.

I know. How?

For some reason, I was reminded of this. Was there a baked bean revival in the 70s or something? (the Beans kick in?

Mother Goose, yes?

Quite an amazing video considering it was NuZiland in the 70s. There'd be a few 80s bands who would have killed for that video budget. And who new Billy Connolly was a member of Mother Goose? Was that how he met Pammy?

As someone says in the comments,?

And who new Billy Connolly was a member of Mother Goose?

I thought more Alan Moore, the scariest facial hair in modern comics. And despite the critical plaudits, David, Lost Girls is one picture book you won't want Bob-The-Baby reading for a couple of decades.

p.p.s We tried soothing music with our baby but then found 'Sleater Kinney' worked a treat, calmed him right down and sent him off to sleep. Who would have thought.

The Anthology of American Folk Music is what you want. Four discs jam packed with depression-era 78s.

Jake, you beautiful human being. On your recommendation we purchased 'The Anthology of American Folk Music' and it has just arrived.

Bob absolutely loves it — smiling, laughing, and trying?

I am pleased to say Baby #3 (9 months) has been introduced to Joy Division and it works a charm – a definitely step up from #1 and her Metallica thing

__**REPLY:** Thanks Pauline, will?

Unfortunately, banjo music lies a little outside of my range as a dilettante. Nevertheless, a search on archive.org reveals a small trove of banjo tunes recorded on 78s. You?

(did you notice the songs in French on the Anthology? Now that's something that has dropped out of the narrative of American ethnogenesis).

I?ve been working my way through French Cajun music like Zydeko recently after listening to the lovely Adieu False Heart album By Linda Ronstadt and?

And, as Bob (Munro, not the baby) says, the French stuff is from Louisiana. It didn't occur to me, but that would explain the dialect. From?

And yes, we certainly did notice the French — but what dialect is it? Nothing like I learnt at school that's for sure.

Cajun French was my grandmother's first language. It is seventeenth-century French, transplanted to the USA via les Acadiens – hence the wacky dialect and accent. (My parents?

This dialect is now known as Cajun English, and there is a distinct difference between north Louisiana and Cajun country in this regard – you can actually drive from the New Orleans dialect to the Cajun dialect to a generic southern accent within three or four hours.

For some weird?

Jake Pollock wrote:

... still amazed that a baby could have such specific, and extremely obscure, taste. I guess it bodes well.

I'm completely unable to explain his taste in any way. I keep asking?

A couple of surprises included: Juice Newton's Queen of Hearts (it just came to me one day, god knows why) and the Dixie Chicks Landslide... YouTube's a great diversion... almost all?

I just knew that it would be the Canadian's fault. Typical behaviour for a syrup-eating nation, I'm sorry to say.

Don?t knock the Canucks. They whupped American ass in 1812
where they?ve been cowering below the 49th parallell ever since.

?A final attempt in 1812 by American General?

How exotic you are!

The exoticism thing gets scaled back a tad after I tell people that my mum is from Invercargill. Southland reprazent!

Janis Joplin was ?busted flat in Baton Rouge?. Lucinda Williams has her doomed character in ?Lake Charles? born in Nacogdoches, and taking the Louisiana highway to Lake Pontchartrain.

I forgot to say, Bob: being busted flat in Baton Rouge is a grimly depressing prospect: it's all chain restaurants and fratboys.?

"I'm proud to be a scourer from Mataura".

The War of 1812. This is a favourite for family car trips.

Wow, that takes gloating to a whole new level. I'm sending the link to all my American friends right away.

Wow, that takes gloating to a whole new level. I'm sending the link to all my American friends right away.

As an antedote, you may wish to consider The Toronto Song. It even has banjos. Though possibly not enough for Bob.

Bob also loves this tune, and indeed gets it most nights (on the guitar, not banjo).

In the eternal one-up-manship that is parenthood, I can reveal that Bob is not only a music listener, but also a talented ukuleleist. The song is Malvina Reynolds "We Hate to See?

Also, Dude, Beard. Hmmm.

I have a Deering that looks just like the one in that vid. I think I'm going to go have a hack at Wildwood Flower RIGHT NOW.

Tears in the eyes and all that...

That will be my singing, Jackie — it often has that effect on people. In my defence, I'm playing the song in completely the wrong key for my voice on account of the fact that neither Bob nor I know?

And well done on the They Might Be Giants. At this rate he'll be on to?