Manny the Manny

You may have noticed that I have fallen off a bit with my frequency and regularity of posts recently. Yoshi and Salvador just got back from a two week vacation this week, which means I’m also back from vacation this week. That just means I have to re-adjust to both a mannying and blogging schedule, which will take me just a bit. Plus, you know, that whole “Labor Day” thing threw everyone’s life out of wack.

In the mean time, thanks for hanging in there with me. Appreciate it, sports fans. Onward and upward.

One of Salvador’s favorite shows — on those rare occasions his strict manny lets him watch TV, that is — is The Simpsons. Sure, he just turned 10, and a lot of the episodes carry a TV-14 rating, but whatever. He usually doesn’t get the more mature jokes anyway, and he’s smart enough to handle it. He’s usually not allowed to watch the “Treehouse of Horror” episodes, though.

But I digress.

Last October, as you will recall, The Simpsons was renewed for two more seasons, extending its run as the most venerable prime time comedy ever. Salvador, being a fan, heard the good news.

And then lost it. I don’t mean he had the news in some physical form and then mislaid it; I mean the child lost his damn mind:

“It’s only going to be on for two more years?? THIS IS TERRIBLE NEWS!” Salvador cried out.

“No, Salvador, it’s going to be on for at least two more years. That’s actually really good. A lot of shows only get renewed for one year at a time.”

“WHAT DOES ‘AT LEAST’ MEAN??”

Ah, now we’ve arrived at the problem. Salvador was upset because he didn’t understand that the show could be around even longer than the two additional seasons, and that the network was certain to pull the plug in 2013. What we have here is a failure to communicate.

Except…how does one go about explaining the concept of “at least”? Do you start by explaining the concept of a minimum and then go on to say that there could be more of something than the predetermined minimum? Do you use an example? Maybe something like, “if I have 4 nickels, that also means I have at least 2.” I’m not even sure that example makes sense — now I’m confused.

In the end, I think I just told him that after two years, they would decide again whether to bring the show back. That made him anxious about that inevitable decision — which will be made around the same time Salvador gets his first armpit hair — but calmed him down in the short term.

I have to say, I did not see that outburst coming.

What concepts have you had trouble explaining to your children?

(Image credit: Cindy Funk’s flickr. Used under Creative Commons license. The Simpsonsis a trademark and copyright of FOX and its related entities.)