Unrequested Opinion
I'm not sure what got me started on this today. Some days I just like to practice my debating skills. Keeps the mind sharp when it's in danger of being completely dulled down by the 8,000th reading of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.I know there are parents out there who disdain all character based toys, clothing or other accessories. I'm not especially one of them, loving Disney as I do and having a particularly warm spot in my heart for Sesame Street. But I do understand their point - there are a lot of companies trying to make a buck off your kid in whatever ways they can. They're not concerned about the messages they're sending and they're not staying awake at night worried about whether their offerings are turning kids into vapid little consumers.
But as with anything, there is a line to be drawn. I was raised to be skeptical of extremes. To claim that all character based toys are bad is just as goofy to me as saying none of them are. It depends on the message, the meaning and the timing. And the decisions about those elements are the job of the parents. Abdicating that responsibility by painting a broad brush stroke over every character-based item seems lazy.
I do and will continue to avoid some of the Big Nasties. If your kid loves them, more power to them and you, but I have issues with them. For example, I'm not a huge fan of Barbie. Should AnonaBaby come to love that particular franchise, I'll re-evaluate, but she'll have to come to it on her own. I don't intend to encourage it. There are the body issues, and the materialistic bent that old Barbie has, and a host of other quandaries that she raises for me. So if I can avoid her, I shall.
The entire Bratz franchise is verboten. Period. Those big-headed freaks just scream "junior high ho" to me. Why does a child require a doll dressed like a prostitute? Answer: she doesn't. There's enough out there to do battle with; a skanky doll I don't need. A skanky doll that idolizes boys and focuses so much energy on the state of her hairdo? Blech.
'Course, by the time AnonaBaby is the target age, I suspect the Bratz will have been supplanted with something else. One can hope it won't be even worse (though the rival "Flava" toy faction, with it's dolls in ripped jeans, leopard print tops and accessory graffiti wall makes me physically ill).
Fortunately my own private war on fashion dolls is some years away. These days, deciding what to let AnonaBaby see and play with is pretty easy. I'm not a fan of any cartoon franchise whose sole aim is to sell toys. I don't know anyone who provides toys for AnonaBaby who is. If the cartoon came first and was established and then there were toys? Not such an issue for me. And there are about a million marvelous educational toys out there that focus on the Right Stuff (counting, alphabet, vocabulary and the like). Plus AnonaBaby doesn't watch a ton of TV and what she does see I watch with her. It's fun to sing along and count with the Count and find other things in the room that are red. We clap when Eve the squirrel finds the hidden acorn (on the aptly titled "Find the Acorn" on BabyFirst TV) and I follow up on Harry the Bunny's lesson regarding "behind" and "in front of" by showing AnonaBaby the same concept (again, Harry's on BabyFirst - it's a subscription channel, no commercials, and the programming is either original or from other countries and dubbed, so no merchandise. We like it at our house.)
The big character in our house is Elmo. I know Elmo has been merchandised to death. I just... don't have so much of a problem with him. I think he's pretty cute, for a furry monster (I'm still a die-hard devotee of Cookie Monster, myself, but I can see the appeal). His little 15 minutes on Sesame Street are sweet and educational and fun. And AnonaBay
loves him. She has several Elmo outfits and two talking Elmo toys and several Elmo books and, yes, we have an Elmo flag flying on the front of the house from her birthday because I like to see my girl light up and point to it when we pull in the driveway. When she sees Elmo she cries out, "Mo!" and looks to me to find out if I've seen him too.
It doesn't bother me. She doesn't watch him every day. Some days she wants to play with her Elmo toy and other days she's all over her baby doll or her alphabet blocks or whatever. I'd worry if she seemed to be developing an unhealthy attachment to a furry puppet, but she's not. And I know that soon, sooner than I think, sooner than I'd like, it'll be red lip-liner and not red puppets that I'll have to contend with.
I hope that we can stay open about consumerism, my daughter and her Dad and I. I hope I'll be able to explain why I find certain toys inappropriate and I hope more that AnonaBaby will, if not agree with me, at least understand that I'm trying to do my best by her.
But more than that I hope that she'll keep showing her own good taste. Because I've gotten sort of fond of that little red monster myself.
Labels: In My Humble Opinion
How'd that happen?
We're having our house painted this week. I can't begin to tell you how downright giddy it's making me, despite the fact that the plastic covered windows are giving me mild claustrophobia.
When we bought this house I loathed several fixable things about it. The first thing was the crazy deep pink color scheme that included white and pink tile (with pink grout!) used in the bathrooms, the kitchen, the living room and the entryway. The inside of the front doors, all the door frames and the hall closet were all painted pink too. I actually woke up several times during escrow in a cold sweat, gasping, "Oh my dear Lord, we've bought a pink house!"
It wasn't actually quite as horrific as it sounds on paper. Though all those things were, in fact, pink, a couple of cans of paint and some elbow grease corrected the door issues. And the tile situation was resolved last year when we remodeled the kitchen and replaced all the downstairs tile. Now the only reminders of the previous owner's truly awful taste remain safely hidden in the master bathroom, where we haven't gotten around to remodeling yet. It's on the list.
The second thing I loathed was the color of the exterior paint. It was avocado green with rotten avocado green trim. And it was freshly painted. Despite hating the color, I couldn't bring myself to shell out good money to paint over a new paint job, so I lived with it for 7 years.
This year we've been able to do some pretty big work on the house and get more than half the things done on our "Project: Perfect House" list. Getting the house painted and installing a new roll-up garage door are the finishing touches of about 5 months of estimates, scheduling, contractors and all the general stress that home renovation brings. The new colors are a clean creamy white (called "Muslin" by Kelly Moore, and appropriately so) and a deep sky blue for the trim. I love it. It's almost like having a new house (though not completely. A new house would be tidier than this one...)
When I drove AnonaBaby to my mom's for the day I noticed something very strange about the colors we'd picked to paint the house. I don't know how it happened, but the lovely cream and blue color scheme that I adore so much and lovingly picked for our home?
It's the same as my mom's house.
Labels: This one time I was at the mall and the weirdest thing happened...
It's sort of dangerous
I've been spending a
lot of time with my latest obsession, Facebook. AnonaBaby took a two and a half hour nap today and I spent far too much of it looking up people, taking quizzes and hoping that people would acknowledge my invitations to be friends.
It's weird how much feels at stake. I've looked up many many people who don't appear to be on the site. And I've looked up many others who were. I exhausted their friends, I think I've exhausted mine and I've scraped the bottom of the barrel for folks from high school and old jobs. What I'm left with is that I don't know many people. Not really.
I didn't keep in touch with many people from high school, though my two best friends from then came to my daughter's first birthday party, so you know we're still close. I went to a commuter college and my friends during that time were all from work (I worked at a restaurant and if you've done that you know how tight that bunch can get). It doesn't look like any of those folks are on Facebook. Then I went into my career and... well, I'm not a work friends sort of person, mostly. I was really young when I went into high tech (still in college), and I worked with my father, so after work drinks were right out.
I stayed in high tech for years but cut ties with all that when I got disgusted with the business and switched over to teaching. I have some friends from work, but not a ton, and teachers aren't very tech savvy in general.
Facebook is exciting in that it gives me hope that I will find that one friend, that one person who I lost touch with. Maybe we'll get back in touch and I'll have a new old friend. And that would be lovely, but I don't really think it'll work that way. Not for me. I'm just not the type.
Besides, I can't think of anyone else I'd like to get in touch with. It's sort of a downer. I'm sure the novelty will wear off in a week or so.
SighLabels: Confession is Good for the Soul, Who ARE you?
Typical
So I took all these great pictures and video from 4th of July and of course I left both cameras at my Mom's house last night. The funny thing (or the pathetic thing, depends how you look at it) is that as I watched my Mom move the cameras from the table whilst prepping it for dinner, I thought to myself, "I should put those in the baby bag because I'll forget them on the entertainment center if I don't move them
right now."
And then I reached for my champagne glass and did not move my
self, let alone the cameras.
Ah well. It's not like they're far away. A 15 minute drive would retrieve them.
Maybe tomorrow.
I will, once I get the camera, post a very blurry picture of my new haircut (I shall blur my face, not my hair. I suspect I would be recognizable from my face - one hopes! - but not my hair since none of you know what it was like before). This anonymous thing is a pain, it turns out.
In other news, AnonaBaby did not like fireworks one bit this year. Last year she was only 5 weeks old and didn't notice them. This year we thought she might be interested, if she was awake, and she was, so we took her into the front yard to watch our neighbors set off their Safe and Sanes. We're too cheap to buy any ourselves, but my Mom's next door neighbors treat the whole block to a pyrotechnics show, and are
extremely safety conscious.
However, AnonaBaby was very unnerved by the entire spectacle, and rather than scar her for life we opted to remove her to the safety of the front window. She watched for about 6 seconds and then toddled off to the back of the house where there were no fireworks at all
thankyouverymuch. Thus it was that a wide variety of lovely sparks and flames were going on outside and we were stuck in the living room watching
1776.
The end.
Labels: The Mummy Returns
Taking Time
It's been an odd and interesting few days. Beginning last Thursday, I've been sort of in an All About AnonaMum mood, which hasn't happened in a really long time. And to be nakedly honest, I don't feel quite as guilty about it as I probably should.
My mother takes care of the AnonaBaby on Tuesdays and Thursdays for a few hours. This is ostensibly so that I can go work out, although I haven't worked out once. The arrangement serves a lot of purposes, actually. One is so that AnonaBaby doesn't get strange around my mother, who is her daytime caregiver during the school year while I'm at work. This is the baby's first really "aware" summer, and we don't want her to develop any stranger anxiety in the 10 weeks that school's out. It would make going back to work even more horrible than it already is.
The Tuesday/Thursday arrangement is also totally because my mother would go out of her mind if she didn't see AnonaBaby several times a week. If that woman goes more than three days without spending time with her grandchild (AnonaBaby is the only grandchild), she goes bananas - she's crazy about the kid. It's definitely reciprocated, since the baby lights up when I mention that we're going to see Nana. She repeats it over and over with different inflections, "Nana. NAna. NaNA. NANA!" Sometimes she alternates, "Mommy! Nana! MomMY! NaNA! MOMMY! Nana!" So. Excited.
So last week after I dropped her off, I decided to take a few hours and head over to the good mall. I treated myself to a nice lunch, got my eyebrows shaped, did a little browsing. It was a lovely afternoon. I thought I had an appointment to get my hair cut that evening, so after picking up the baby, I dropped her at home with the AnonaDad and headed over to my stylist's. Turned out my appointment was actually on Friday so I called AnonaDad to check in. The baby had conked out after having her dinner just fine and he urged me to go ahead and browse the bookstore or whatever and enjoy myself. I think this was as much because he'd TiVo'd one of the SciFi channel's notoriously bad movies and wanted to watch it without my snarky commentary as because he loves me, but regardless, I stayed out.
On Friday the baby and I had a lovely day together just hanging around the house and then I went to get my hair cut. I went for a drastic change and I. LOVE. It. I went from wearing a ponytail every day to a sleek but not difficult short style that I have to say takes a few years off me. My hair is very full and curly and I have the option of wearing the style scrunched with a little Frizz-Ease right out of the shower, or straightening it with the curling iron in about 10 minutes when it's dry. I am thrilled.
On Saturday the whole AnonaFamily went to the mall again because we wanted to get out of the house but the wildfire situation in our region made the air too nasty to be outdoors in (and now you have at least some idea of where I live). We shopped for some picture frames for the portraits we had taken of the baby, had a light lunch and generally hung out.
I decided on Sunday to ask my mom if she'd come by for a few hours and watch the baby while I began tackling our garage, which is a disaster area. She had a great time playing with AnonaBaby and I actually made quite a dent in the mess. This coming weekend I intend to continue the project.
Yesterday I went out to lunch with my mom and sister and then we caught a movie ("You Don't Mess With the Zohan" - as stupid as you'd expect, but as long as you know what you're in for, it was entertaining enough). AnonaDad watched the baby and again - I had a great "girl's afternoon" without my kid.
And today, after AnonaBaby and I went to her Tuesday morning "Bouncing Babies" class I left her again with my mom and took in another movie ("Wall-E" - highly recommended, though probably not for little little kids).
When I look at all the time I spent away from my daughter, I feel a little uncomfortable. Generally it was only for a few hours at a time, and she was with either her grandmother or her father, both of whom adore her and can obviously care for her every bit as well as I can, but... it still seems wrong somehow. On the one hand I feel like, hey, it's summer and this is the time when I can spend all my time with my baby - I can't do that during the school year, so why am I spending so much time
away from her? On the other hand, I think it's important for her to spend time with many different caregivers and I know I need to take time for myself so that I can be at my best when I
am with her. I know I'm more patient, more pleasant, just generally happier when I have had at least
some time on my own.
I think my problem is that I feel guilty not so much for being away from her but for simply taking time for myself. If I had been running important errands or doing something "worthwhile" I probably wouldn't think twice about leaving her. But anything "optional" induces guilt.
I don't know. How do you other moms cope with the desire to take time for yourself? Does it make you feel guilty or pleased?
A Moment
Scene: The greeting card aisle of my local mega-mart. I saunter down the aisle to the "Birthday, Humorous" section and begin picking cards at random, hoping to score a good one for my best friend's belated 42nd. There is a woman a few years older than I am about three feet away, also browsing.
I pick a card, read it. I grimace. Replace it. Pick another card. Read it. Frown. Replace it. I repeat this at least half a dozen times. Where is the advertised humor? I can either guess the punchline ahead of time or it's so awful I'm
glad I didn't think of it myself. Soon I notice that the woman near me is doing the same thing.
"They should hire me," I mutter. "I could do better than this."
The woman next to me looks up. "I know, huh? It's all bathroom jokes or over the hill junk. None of which I'm giving my Dad."
I momentarily think of my own Dad, who appreciated the good bathroom joke now and again. I'm sorry that I can't be in this aisle trying to select just the right potty joke card for him. I'd happily pop $2.49 to make him laugh again. To see him laugh again. But I also know what she means.
More tense silent reading of unsatisfactory cards.
Finally, I choose one. Read it. Snicker.
The woman near me looks up hopefully. "Find a good one?"
I shake my head, even though I did. "Not for your Dad."
Highlight below to see the card's contents:
Outside: What's the difference between a margarita and a hunky guy?
Inside: A margarita always hits the spot.
Labels: This one time I was at the mall and the weirdest thing happened...
Each Day Better than the Next
This was rather a tough weekend and I'll admit I'm glad it's over. We had several days in a row of stifling temperatures which resulted in some very frayed nerves around here. AnonaBaby is getting another tooth and it's causing her some righteous indignation. And she has discovered her scream, which has caused us to rethink the necessity of being able to hear.
This scream is... unimaginable. I did not think such a sound could come out of so small an individual. It is piercing. It is so high that the dogs in our neighborhood come out of the woodwork for it (well, they would if we didn't keep the windows closed). And it is LOUD.
And I have no ides how to make her stop it.
Obviously, at a year old, I cannot reason with her. I cannot make her understand that it HURTS when she screams
right in my ear. She does not understand cause and effect well enough to make the connection that her scream and my eardrum do not want to be bosom buddies. I can't put my hand over her mouth because... well, why not exactly? It looks all wrong? It's ineffective? I get bitten if I do that?
Yeah. That's the one. She also bites.
Where did my sweet baby girl go? She was apparently kidnapped and replaced with this squirming, biting, screaming, teething disaster area. I know she's biting because her teeth hurt, so I'm giving her stuff to chew on (teething rings, wet washcloths, the cats...) but her favorite thing to chew on is me and I can't say as I appreciate it.
The only thing I've been able to figure out to do with the screaming is put her down, turn around and ignore her. She doesn't like to be ignored, so... it sort of works. Somewhat. As soon as I turn around she screams again so not completely effective. Also it does not work in the car. And the car? Is the
worst place that she pulls this screaming thing. Also, public places.
Between the heat and the resulting difficulty with naps such that the child was wildly overtired and uncomfortable, and my being screamed at, bitten and generally clawed all weekend, I was happy as all get out to plop that kid in her crib last night after the world's fastest reading of "Goodnight Moon".
(By the way, does anybody know what the deal is with the page that says, "Goodnight nobody?" It creeps the living hell out of me every time I read it.)
God, I'm all over the place today.
Any suggestions on the biting thing, the screaming thing (God, especially the screaming thing. With the biting I simply remove her from my person and tell her no, biting hurts. I'm still bigger than she is. But the screaming... Lord...) or the mystery of Goodnight nobody would be appreciated. I'm fresh out of ideas.
