American Girl underwear

I’m sitting here, looking online at underwear for a doll that costs more than the underwear I buy for myself.

Why?  Because it’s an American Girl doll.  And my daughter needed one, because all of her friends have them and she got left out when they play with them.  And I’m a sucker.

But really….why are these dolls so expensive?  And why are their accessories so expensive?  It’s a doll.  You wouldn’t have caught me playing with a doll at 11 years old. 

And….why do these dolls have an almost cult-like following?  Especially among adults?  That’s right, adults.  I was browsing a forum this morning where people were selling dolls and accessories and one person had listed a doll for sale because she had not “bonded” with the doll.  What?!?  This is not a child or a dog.  It’s a doll.

And then….Katrina and I were at Target this weekend and I offered to buy her an outfit for her AG doll.  Of course, the outfits were in the aisle with the knock-off dolls….and she tells me that she would have been happy with one of those.  And then I seriously wanted to kick myself.

I just don’t get it.  At that age I was watching Star Trek and making a to-scale model of the solar system on the ceiling in my bedroom. 

Although I did see someone selling a ST:TOS uniform for these dolls the other day…..

Girls can do karate too!!

We went to a karate tournament this weekend for my daughter.  She's taken karate for 3 years now.  I would say about half of the kids at the tournament were girls.  No one in the "karate world" thinks too much about it.  But apparently people who have never had children in karate think it's a big deal that a girl takes karate and, even more, does well at it. 

Some of the questions and comments that I get are very, let's say, interesting.

"Your daughter takes karate?"  Yeah, she also wears pants on occasion.

"She got first place in the girls' division?"  The look on their faces when I tell them that there is no girls' division is awesome.

"Aren't you afraid of her getting hurt?"  Because that wouldn't worry me if she was a boy?

There are more, but those are some of my favorites right now.  I'm sure they'll get even better as she gets older.  These questions always help to remind me of how far we still have to go until we stop stereotyping girls and boys.  And it makes me sad.

Things parents say

As I was cooking last night, my son was systematically removing my spatulas from the kitchen.  As I asking him, "Is there a reason you're taking all of my spatulas?" I realized that this phrase, along with at least thousands of others, are phrases that only a parent would say.  So I've decided to try to be conscious of the things I say that I would not say if I didn't have children.  For example, I later had to remind him that we do not touch our butt while we're pooping.  Seriously people - if I didn't have kids, I would (hopefully) never in my life have to say such a phrase.  So what weird phrases do you say to your kids that you would never say to another person?

Pee in the Potty

Katrina had her Barbies out tonight...which are one of the very few "toys" she still plays with.  Somewhere along the line she acquired a pink plastic Barbie toilet.  It looks like this.

So...Katrina is in practicing her piano, and I was watching to see how she's doing on a song she's supposed to memorize.  All of a sudden Emmett comes in carrying the Barbie potty...and it's dripping.  

Yep, he peed in it.  He was very proud of that fact too.

Of course, a Barbie toilet only holds so much water, so after he filled it up the pee went all over the floor.

Somebody tell me again why I wanted a little boy?

Showering

My life has become all about how long I can stay in the shower before someone needs me.  I don't dare shower while I'm home alone with the kids.  Any mother who is home alone nightly with small children will tell you that you cannot shower while they are running around the house.  In the time that it takes me to shower, my children would ransack the toy room, draw all over the computer monitor, feed the dogs 20 milkbones a piece, and eat every last chocolate chip cookie in the kitchen.  So I wait until they are asleep to shower.  But this plan still doesn't always work - invariable I will be all soapy and warm and hear a heart-wrenching "Mooooommmmmmm!!!!" only to hurry up and half rinse off, grab my robe, run upstairs...and find that they're already back to sleep.  And tonight, as I was finishing up my shower, I heard someone pushing on the bathroom door.  Of course, my mind immediately leaps to the serial killer that I just know is out there.  I calm down, reassuring myself that if someone came in the house the dogs would bark.  The dogs bark if someone walks down the sidewalk and looks at the house, so I'm pretty sure they'd bark if someone actually came inside.  So I finish my shower, get out, and open the door...only to discover that it's the dog that wants in the bathroom.  So even when the kids manage to sleep all of the way through my shower, the dog apparently can't.  That's when I realized that my life has been reduced to seeing how long I can actually take an uninterrupted shower.  And maybe, someday, I'll actually be able to take a nice, long, relaxing bath.  Hey, a mom can dream, right?

Bullying response

I recently posted a link to the video of news anchor Jennifer Livingston’s response to a bully on my Facebook page.  This is the response I received from a friend:

“This woman needs to get over it and realize people have opinions she won’t always agree with.  It’s up to her whether or not to share a personal email with the rest of the world.  She could of just deleted it along with the 5000 other spam emails we all get everyday.”

While I am a firm believer that everyone has a right to their own opinion, I wholeheartedly disagree with this one.  As a mother who’s third grader has already been subject to severe bullying at school, I applaud any effort to get the message out that this kind of behavior is unacceptable.  The fact that Ms. Livingston had the courage to publicly address the issue that she is overweight but that this kind of treatment of people is bullying and is not acceptable is to be commended.  I plan on showing this video to my daughter to drive home the point to her that bullying is not to be tolerated and that she can find the courage to stand up and call her tormenters out to the world.