It's the 4 year old version of "I slept with this girl. You don't know her. She lives in Canada."

Eli & I were on our way to a DC Metro Mom event sponsored by PBS Kids. Despite the fact that Eli is the single most outgoing child on the planet, I felt the need to prep him for the childcare situation:

SG: We're going to have such a good time. You're going to get to meet your new friend Quinn.

Eli: I already have a friend named Quinn. Can we go to McDonald's instead?

You have a friend named Quinn?

Yes. He's five and lives in New York.

Eli sounds so convinced that I believe him. I run through the various cousins and other people we lump in the "friend" category for someone named Quinn and come up blank.

Really? Where did you meet him?

I mean Paris. He lives in Paris. Now can we go to McDonald's?

Here's someone you don't get to meet at McDonald's. Or Paris.

All John Hughes movies aside (1) , it was fascinating to learn how much work and thought (2) PBSkids puts into each episode. They even shared with the DC Metro Moms the results of an independent study that showed that viewing episodes of SuperWhy helped low-income children improve their early literacy skills.

And all this time, SG was pushing PBS on her kids just to avoid the crush cup commercials.

1) An earlier draft referred to Eli's many friends named Quinn in the Niagra Falls area, having a fake ID so he could vote, his low tolerance to dehydration and warned that "if he gets up, we'll all get up. It'll be anarchy." But the nice people at PBS kids deserved better than that.
2) Someone who shall remain nameless could learn from them. Fine, I mean me.