Metal Meredith

I found this on a great site for working moms. Although I am not a ‘working mom’ as this site might define it, I can appreciate the list of books they have created. This page says the following:

Snow White, Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast all have their place in children’s hearts we suppose. But if you want your kids to grow up believing that girls should dream of more than just kissing the prince, check out these books.

Each of them features strong, smart, spunky girl protagonists that want to eat bugs, get first place in the science fair and grow up to be a teacher, a doctor, a firefighter or even a diva.

Phil and I often discuss how much we hate the rash of princess themed items that have exploded out of the bosom of Disney in the past few year. Although I am not opposed to the stories themselves, I believe that girls that are 4 and under don’t really get it. The dress up side is fine. But Cinderella and Snow White have very negative characters that would scare me if I was 4. The Little Mermaid seems more young kid friendly, as does Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. But for the most part, the crap that comes along with the movies is what really bothers me.

Every item imaginable has been covered in princess themes now. I read an article yesterday pointing out how there is a new Princess Kitchen Set and the author questioned what being a princess means to a 4 year old is obviously not what it means to us. What princess wants to cook and clean? Isn’t that the point?

My last bitch about the princess thing are the t-shirts and other items with it printed on the front and (god forbid) butt. To some, “princess” is an endearing comment, a sweet compliment. But for both Phil and I, “princess” seems snotty, diva-esque, entitled and bratty. You won’t find any clothing on my child declaring her any sort of Princess or Diva. We do, however, have a sweet collection of floofy dress up clothes for just this purpose.

I am not throwing away my tiara anytime soon, you can bet that. 

OK, so a few things happened today that freaked me out:

First, Zac Hanson, the little kid that was the drummer in Hanson, (you know, “MMMM Bop!") do you remember him? Let me help:

Ok, he is the little one.

Now, it was reported today that Zac Hanson is about to become a dad. I know, I know! WTF?!? Isn’t he 12 years old? Nope. I suppose not because here he is today:

with his wife. Good lord.

Secondly, Kevin Dubrow, the lead singer of Quiet Riot was found dead in his home in Las Vegas.

He is the blonde (that isn’t his real hair). He was 52. Fifty Two!

When did everyone get so. damn. old?

I never thought it would happen. I remember reading about a friend, her day of hell potty training her 4 year old and hoped and hoped we would never have to do that.

For those of you not close enough to us, Vivienne STILL will not poop in the toilet. Each time, she asks for a pull up or goes and gets one herself. When she is done, she comes and tell us, gets wipes and a plastic bag and brings them to us to clean her up. We have tried every single thing you can think of to get her to change. Bribery, arguing, begging and even guilt and praise doesn’t work. 

Last week, Phil asked me what else we can do to get her to go because he was fed up with it (mind you, he changes only 2 of her poop diapers a week, if that). I talked to her on Friday about what we could do to make her more comfortable. She was rational and asked to try to go on the toilet. She sat there for 20 minutes, whining and complaining but being too stubborn to, well, shit or get off the pot. Finally I had to force her to go get a diaper instead of sitting there trying her best not to poop while attempting to convince me she was trying.

I did one more sweep of the internet search engines and came up with nothing new. As a last resort, I popped onto the Babycenter Toilet Training board and read a thread of other people having this same problem. After reading those, I decided that it wasn’t Vivienne’s problem, it was mine. The worst being the stigma of having a 4 yr old not able to be potty trained, the embarrassment of telling grandparents and in laws that they have to change her diaper if she spends more than one night with them. But again, my problem, not hers.

So I let it go. I told Phil to let it go. I took a deep breath and walked away. She will do it when she is ready. She knows we are ready.

She has not asked to try on the toilet again. She tells me about a far away time and place called “when I poop on the potty” where there are unicorns and rainbows, everyone eats at Chuck E Cheese all the time and gets all the toys they ask for. Where she is a princess and when she sits on the toilet, angels sing and bluebirds bring her glitter filled pieces of toilet paper. It sounds so nice, even I want to go there.

I am waving the white flag...or maybe a pole with a diaper on it.

I had two neighborhood kids over raking my back yard this week. I figure they are 13 or 14 years old. They came around with flyers and volunteered their services to mow or rake or clean up yards. Phil and I have been looking to have the backyard cleaned out for some time. It had a buildup of many years of leaves and pine needles over about 2/3 of it. It looked like too big of a job for us, being as lazy as we are.

In come these nice boys. They came over, radio in hand, with wheelbarrows and rakes, toted in gloved hands. They worked a half day on Thursday and all day Friday. I rewarded them with $50 over our original quote (they wanted $35, I told them $100 and gave them $150 - it was a huge job) and one of them is coming back on Monday to do some more work.

I was fixing Vivienne some lunch in the kitchen while listening to their radio outside. I sang along to most of the songs by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tool, etc. But when Nirvana came on, I got a little nostalgic. Then I wondered how Kurt Cobain’s death affected these boys outside.

Then, I realized by doing the math that they were not even a year old when that happened. In fact, the younger one wasn’t even born yet.

I quickly shut the window and turned by attention on eating lunch with Vivienne and watching Dora.

*Kym sent me this article which made me laugh several times at the timing!