Bad News: "I want to watch Caillou." Yes, Caillou is back, that shrill little child who is never told a discouraging word, at least not in a direct way.
In today's episode, I believe titled The Emotional Blackmail of the Homemade Gift, Caillou drops his mother's mug and breaks it. Turns out the mug was made by his grandma at a craft studio.
Reaction in My World: Thank you Caillou for freeing me from that clumsy clay mug! I will never again have to feel obligated to keep and/or drink from it just because it was a handmade gift.
Reaction in Caillou's World: Oh Caillou honey, that was my favorite mug because my mother made it. But don't worry about my loss, it was an accident.
Caillou, sufficiently shamed, admits to his grandma he broke the mug she made.
Reaction in My World: Mugs break.
Reaction In Caillou's World: Why Caillou, we can go the craft studio and make her another one. Let nothing in our world ever change and we will all be fine.
Caillou proceeds to make an even clumsier and more lopsided replacement mug and presents it to his mother.
Reaction in My World: Dang it, Caillou—you freed me from that other mug and now you've saddled me with an even heavier burden, a mug you made. How am I ever supposed to enjoy my coffee when I have to drink it out of lacquered lumps of clay?
The episode ends with the characters singing a song whose message is essentially: the best thing you can do in the world is give people gifts because gifts make people happy.
Reaction in My World: Ha, ha, ho ho ho—that's rich! Gifts make people happy!
At this point I want to tell my son, draped over the ottoman, to never, ever think he has to give me a gift, or love a gift I give him, to prove his love. But I don't as I'm fairly sure the entire meta message of this episode has gone over his head.
"I want juice in a sippy," he says.
