Last night Boy got invited to a sleepover, and I was worried that Girl would be jealous. Instead she was thrilled. Boy usually guards the TV remote like a pit bull with a ham hock, but last night, Girl had a glorious evening of TV all to herself. (Where were Bob and I? On the front porch smoking a cigar.)

Instead of endless Spongebob, she chose her Popeye DVD – about 3 hours’ worth of old cartoons starting in the 1930s and going up to the 1950s.

We couldn’t coax her outside as she sat on couch and feasted on the antics of Popeye, Olive Oyl and Bluto (these were old cartoons; he wasn’t called Brutus yet). Girl just recently started calling Popeye by his real name; she used to say “Pie-pie.”

After a while, I sat with her, just in time to see Popeye and Bluto fight for Olive’s hand in marriage. Olive chooses her future husband by putting her hands over her eyes and playing eenie meenie miney mo with her pickle-shaped nose.

“Olive is very very stretchy,” Girl said, standing in front of me so I would give my full attention to what she was saying. “But she doesn’t make good choices.”

“She doesn’t?” I said, biting my cheeks not to laugh.

“Yeah. Popeye is much better than Bluto. He’s really strong and he’s nice. Bluto is just selfish.”

Olive basically irritated the hell out of Girl. In another scene, Popeye is getting his butt kicked while Olive just watches.

“I would just go to Popeye’s house and get him some spinach!” Girl said.

So Girl is learning about choices and problem solving. Who woulda thought Popeye could be edumacationable? Well blow me down.