Boys and girls

"I'm not your boyfriend" - Chowder

When it's my turn to look after our sons, I feel like I am being punished when being made to watch Cartoon Network (CN) all day long by them. Not that I'm complaining, I still love cartoons!

Chowder

One of the boys' favourite CN show is Chowder, which is about an excitable young apprentice of a legendary chef, Mung Daal. Chowder loves food and dreams of becoming a great chef one day.

Panini is the apprentice to Ms Endive and who has a terrible crush on Chowder. She's convinced that Chowder is her boyfriend and takes every opportunity to let him know this.

Chowder does not return the feelings, which he strongly shows by responding, "I'm not your boyfriend!" everytime Panini greets him.

Boys vs Girls

We all know that a very young age, boys and girls hate, or rather, dislike each other, right? We've noticed that in our boys. The older one casually describes that boys play only with boys and should not mix with the girls, implying that girls are bothersome to play with.

We also know that television shows can influence our children's thoughts and behavious, right? This particularly struck us recently with our younger son.

"I'm not your boyfriend!"

On schooldays, I bring Cean to school in the morning while his mum and JP collects him in the afternoon. One day, on their way back home they pass by several girls (one of which is Cean's classmate) when suddenly, JP told them, "I'm not your boyfriend!" together with a look of dislike. Daisy was more embarrassed than surprised upon hearing it. Later that night, Daisy told me about this incident and I can't help but laugh.

That weekend of the incident, I brought the boys to our local Sainsbury's to do some groceries. Both of them would ride in the trolley while we coast along the alleys to find stuff we needed.

We pass by a group of girls, probably sisters and in their early teens. JP then gave the look and said, "I'm not your boyfriend!" I wanted to run away from the scene and if asked, disown my son.

When I told Daisy about it later that night, it was her turn to have a great laugh.

Boy Loves Girl

I'm glad that silly episode in our young family life is over now. Our little Chowder had found his Panini and when they are together they are oblivious to what's going on around them... while holding hands! I now tease him about it telling him that the next time he sees his "girl" (yes, that's what he calls her), say "I am your boyfriend!" He will just smile back and repeat it.

Photos: Chowder (Ben's Chill kid blog), Panini & Chowder (Baking the Baker blog) and Chowder & Panini (TVrage.com)