Toys R What?

I'm going through one of my periodic fits of "I should keep a blog." This usually hits me around 2 a.m., when I have awakened in the night and mentally crafted the sharpest, wittiest entry in the brief history of blogging. I doubt this will match my nocturnal musings, but I will give it my best shot.

I've recently been baptized by the American Girl phenomenon when my daughters each received a "Looks Like Me" doll. Of course, neither child looks like her respective doll, but nevertheless, they all seem to be getting along.

The dolls, which currently fetch $105 each, were gifts from over-indulgent grandparents who happened to have had a bit of good fortune at an Indian Casino last fall. These formerly sensible people felt that their windfall was better spent on inanimate children and their accouterments than things like, say, long-term financial security.

So, now my girls have very expensive non-people to play with and carry around. If only it stopped there. No, these American Girl dolls have entire lines of clothing, footwear, accessories and home furnishings to make their non-lives more pleasant. And all of this stuff costs more than I spend on me and mine for similar items. A bed for an American Girl doll will set you back nearly $100. I'm not sure why someone with no nerve endings needs a bed, but maybe I should give the American Girls my Sleep Number Bed because severing the spinal cord is about the only way you're going to get a good night's rest on that thing.

As a kid, I was never much into dolls, probably for much the same reason I don't have decorative and expensive crystal: I just don't see the point. They don't actually do anything, and I don't really see what my kids do with them, other than change their overly expensive clothes. If my kids put as much effort into dressing themselves as they do their dolls, I wouldn't have to send them back to their rooms each morning to change because their outfits make them look "special."

I rank American Girl dolls right up there with other pointless items for kids, like pet rocks or Silly Bands. Silly Bands are, in essence, colorful rubber bands crafted into various shapes, which kids wear on their wrists -- or more likely than not in my house, leave on the floor to feed the vacuum cleaner. The good thing about Silly Bands is that they don't have to accessorize.

Hey -- maybe someday I'll find Silly Bands for American Girl dolls so my incredulity can be pushed to newer and higher levels.

Wee Fraser: A 5 Year Old Tyrant

Yesterday, my kids were diving for toys at our local pool, when a boy of about five, convinced that our dive stick was his, lept in after my daughter and grabbed her around the neck as she plucked the stick off the pool bottom. Gasping and crying, she surfaced with this child attached to her neck. She shook him off and came to me, while her younger sister got in this boy's face ("why did you hurt my sister!?!?!"). In the meantime, the boy, enraged at the perceived theft, followed Emma, demanding the toy, even after I explained to him that the toy was ours (it even had our name on it). This young child was acting so irrationally and with such anger, I began to wonder if he did not have some sort of behavioral issue. But then I saw how his mother handled the situation.

Did she take him out of the pool and give him a cooling off period, during which she explained why his behavior was inappropriate? No. She made him apologize to Emma, which he did only grudgingly (and subsequently followed us to demand more of our pool toys).

Now, I can accept that kids will do foolish and sometimes reckless things because they're kids. But our job as adults is to teach them what is foolish and reckless and to punish accordingly. Had MY child jumped on top of another child, I can assure you I would have (a) managed to get my ass out of the pool to deal with the problem (unlike this mother) and (b) had my kid sitting in a pool chair for a few minutes, thinking about her actions.

So, what this little boy learned is that it's okay to behave however you want -- as long as you apologize, even insincerely, you're off the hook and there are no additional consequences to your actions.

I see a lot of this half-assed parenting when I'm out and about with my kids. The parents who plead ("please don't do that, sweetie") appeal to the better angels ("oh, that's not nice"), or the deniers ("she's never done that before" -- words spoken to me by a mother whose daughter literally bit Sophie so hard, it left a bloody mark that took two months to fade.)

Sometimes I think I'm not strict enough with my kids, especially when it comes to meal times; sometimes I think I'm too strict. But mostly they're well behaved and respectful and I usually get compliments on their manners, so I'd rather be the latter than allow them to drown themselves -- or others -- with their lack of boundaries.

Fore! Hundred Degrees for 20 Minutes

Some men like to golf. Some like to fish. Others spend their free time in athletic pursuits they are too old for and weren't good at to start with.

My husband likes to bake. This is a problem because I like to fit into my clothes.

Over the past three weekends, he has made: a cake, cupcakes and raspberry cream cheese brownies. I shudder to think what this Saturday will bring. Key lime pie? Petit fours? The aptly named pound cake?

I've been fairly good with all these baked goods hanging about, though. The cake -- yellow with chocolate frosting, my personal favorite -- was for my daughter's 5th birthday party. Her little friends chowed through it like a plague of 100 year locusts, leaving me, well, a crumb really.


The following weekend's batch of chocolate cupcakes with orange-cream cheese icing was allegedly a "practice run" for my younger daughter's birthday, which is in October. She wants a Halloween theme -- we suspect she wants a Halloween party more than a birthday party, but two birds, one stone and all that -- and my husband wanted to play around with colors, flavors and decorating ideas. Thus, two dozen delicious little mounds of simple sugars, which I was supposed to deposit at the kids' preschool for the teachers. (Teachers are well known to be sugar freaks.)

Naturally, I forgot to take them with me, mainly because I had my arms so full of my kids' crap, which they refuse to carry for themselves, that I had no way to cart cupcakes to the car without a handcart. Having the kids carry them was a non-starter: last time I gave my youngest a container of cupcakes, she ran around shaking it, so that we were left with 12 bald cupcakes lolling about in a bed of frosting.

Nevertheless, depsite their hanging about, I resisted all but one a day until the rest of my family finished them off.

The brownines, however, are a whole other issue. Against my better judgement, I downed a couple of them Sunday morning after breakfast, while the rest of the crew was eating cinnamon rolls. I rationalized my actions by exercising afterward, which was a serious tactical error as they threatened to reappear mid-way through my workout.


As I sat last night playing Word Whomp on Pogo.com, I could not rid myself of thoughts of rich, gooey chocolate and smooth, coolness of the cream cheese contrasting with the fruity sweetness of the raspberry filling. Oh, such difficulty resisting their sirens' song.

I finally willed myself to toss them this afternoon. I was the only one eating them, and I was embarrassed by how few remained.


I think tomorrow I'll buy my husband some golf clubs.

Duck, Duck Gosselin!

Okay, I was going to write about how a good chunk of the country has lost its mind because there is a black man occupying the White House. I mean, objecting to the president addressing schoolchildren? Had the previous Oval Office occupant opted to speak about staying in school (and striving to achieve a "C" average), anyone who voiced opposition would have been accused of the worst type of treason.

But that's not what I'm currently musing. I have something far more significant: Jon Gosselin has spoken to ABC News about the very public dissolution of his marriage.

I used to watch "Jon & Kate" all the time, frequently repeating "thank God that's not me" as I watched Jon and Kate try to dress or feed six toddlers. I've got two kids 13 months apart and I barely have a recollection of their first and second years. In fact the stress of having two babies sent me running for the nearest pharmeceuticals. To have SIX? And two in front of them? I'm not sure if lobotomies are performed anymore, but I would have looked into it.

What I found compelling about Jon and Kate was watching this ordinary young couple trying to grapple with this overwhelming job of parenting and providing financially for eight young children. I was very impressed with how well they were doing (especially since they were, for a while, followed by TLC's own version of "Supernanny". The Gosselin children are fairly well behaved, certainly by comparison to families who need the supervision of a stern British nanny.)

But then the Gosselins moved to a bigger house. And Kate started highlighting her hair. You can understand why they'd need extra space. (The shoes alone require their own closet.) Next the corporate sponsors started with the product placement. Ever notice all the Gap clothes on those kids? I can count on one hand the number of Gap items my kids have owned. My girls and their little preschool buddies all wear Target togs. (Last winter there were several little girls with exactly the same jacket, making it extremely difficult to pick my own out from the crowd. I think I took home the wrong kids a couple of times.)

Then the money started pouring in, and the Gosselins moved to the country estate. And Kate got that strange "I can't decide whether to go long or short so I'll do both" hairstyle. Suddenly, all the people who used to help them out with the kids had disappeared (aunt Jodi and uncle Kevin, that lady the kids called "nana" -- where'd they go?)

The Gosselins began to lose their hold on me becaus they were no longer the average young couple trying to raise a really large family. They were celebrities who could afford nannies and cleaning people and help. It was far more fun watching their kids pick out their siblings' Christmas gifts at Toys R Us than watching them get thousands of dollars worth of custom-made playhouses.

But I digress slightly. The gist of Jon's interview was that he claims Kate abused him and he "despises" her.

I read a few comments on a couple of Web sites. They're mainly from women who inexplicably take Kate's side in this train-wreck of a divorce, perhaps from some twisted sense of sisterhood and solidarity. Frankly, you only have to have watched the show to see how miserably Kate treated Jon, who was perhaps the most passive man with a pulse ever to appear on TV.

In fact, I think that Jon may have sat down to watch a few back episodes and the self-disgust helped him grow back the balls Kate had lopped off. Kate's such an unbearable control freak that if I were Jon, I'd have killed myself -- but more likely Kate -- long before we ever got to the point of having sextuplets.

But instead, this once oddly endearing couple now stare back at me from tabloids as I wait to pay for my groceries. They've begun a seemingly unending public war of words, where someday thier children will be able to read all the self-serving and hurtful things we've said about each other.

Once more I see the Gosselins and think "Thank God that's not me."