Secular Confessions

[missychrissy]

Priceless! So...is she going to get a Barbie any time soon?

I have to say, Bobbie said something similar to me when she was little. We'd just spent a day setting up a 3.5 foot above ground pool for them and she said something like "nothing fun ever happens in my life." I didn't react well.

[Suja]

Too funny! We're a no Barbie household. That's my plan anyway.

So, what do y'all think about the Paul Ryan pick for Veep? I have to admit that I'm completely baffled by it.

[missychrissy]

I'm not baffled really...disgusted, yes. But I think they're attempting to energize the far-flung right wingers and he's the man for the job. It's really disturbing to me that anyone in the US would think he's a good idea, but judging the posts from some of my more right-leaning friends, they're out there. I have at least 2 that are ecstatic. I do wonder how I can be friends with people that are so vastly different from me. I might have to hide them from my feed because their posts just make me wanna argue I have enough negativity in my life, I really don't want to get into political debates with anyone because I know I can't keep myself calm about it. Not right now anyway.

[Ky'sMom]

L that is abso-freaking-lutely funny!!! LOL! It was like she gave birth to Barbie or something! That is a good story for future funnies with her as she gets older!

Elle has 2 Barbies my mom gave her. I don't see them really as different from other dolls and she really isn't into dolls that much anymore. She was for about a month though. Recently she is into writing on walls and cutting things with scissors. She cut off all of her Barbie's hair, thinking that of course it would grow back. When I told her it wouldn't she burst into tears for a few minutes but now she says they just have cute afros lol! FWIW, both her barbies are the regular white blonde/blue eyed Barbies, like C's beloved Barbie head except they have naked bodies. DH gave Elle an eyebrow raise when she said her barbies will now have afros. They do kind of have afros though. She cut all of her doll's hair, even baby dolls except for one, whose name is "Pretty Girl." Pretty Girl wouldn't look so pretty if she didn't have hair according to Elle. She is the hispanic version of Baby Alive and Elle loves her because she poops and has a vulva!

I think Ryan as a VP pick was better than McCain's pick of Palin. I also think he picked Ryan due to Ryan's focus on the budget and the questioning about whether or not Romney actually has a plan to reduce the deficits or if he is just "more of the same." I do think Romney did himself a disservice with his choice of Ryan as people will assume Ryan's plan is now Romney's plan in regards to the budget and a lot of people - especially independents and more important elderly people, don't like Ryan's plan because of cuts of Medicare. I think he just lost the battle ground of FL with his VP pick due to that.

Erin

[3andMe]

Priceless! So...is she going to get a Barbie any time soon?

I have to say, Bobbie said something similar to me when she was little. We'd just spent a day setting up a 3.5 foot above ground pool for them and she said something like "nothing fun ever happens in my life." I didn't react well.

Still not planning on getting her a Barbie. She's got enough of one for the time being.

I reiterated with them at dinner about "always" and "never" statements, that they should think carefully before saying things that are absolutes, because very rarely can they authoritatively say that something always or never happens. That it's okay to be disappointed or unhappy or mad about something, and it might feel at the time like they're never having any fun or nothing good ever happens, but they should really stop and think before letting an always or never statement cross their lips. It tends to hurt other people's feelings more than anything else, and it's not accurate. I asked them to think about how Daddy felt, after spending most of the day trying to make them happy by taking them to an amusement park, to hear that he never makes them happy. I suggested they say, "I'm really unhappy right now."

I have told them this before. I hope it sinks in eventually. I think it's a good relationship skill to have as an adult.

[missychrissy]

I think it's a good relationship skill to have as an adult.

Yes it is. I'm sure it will sink in eventually...but it might take a while.

I didn't buy my girls Barbies, but other people did. Aside from haircutting, they didn't really do anything with them. I wasn't a fan of Barbie either growing up, but my paternal grandmother always bought me at least 1 for my birthday and Christmas, so I had a ton of them. My cousins liked them, and since they were her favorite, all of us got what those 2 liked.

[Suja]

Well, I'm baffled by the Ryan pick in terms of figuring out what it is supposed to accomplish. The base hates the president. They could've put Mr. Potatohead at the top of the ticket and they would've voted for him. Ryan energizes the base, but do they need energizing? He's not a senator, not held state wide office in Wisconsin. Near as I can tell, he can't deliver Wisconsin. Because of his budget proposal, I think that Romney just lost Florida. I don't think it moves any of the other toss up states in the right direction for Romney, and maybe it's possible that other "retirement states" like Arizona would come into play. From what I've seen of Ryan, he doesn't seem to have the sort of warmth that would attract people to him, nor does he have any foreign policy experience, which Mitt also lacks. So on the whole, I don't get what this is going to do for him. I mean, McDonnell could've possibly put Virginia away for him, Rubio could have shifted enough latino vote to give him an edge, etc. What does Ryan do for him exactly?

[Gwenn]

That Barbie story is too much!

I had Barbies growing up. I remember my sister cut the hair of all the ones I inherited from her. Somehow from that I must have learned that dolls' hair doesn't grow because I never cut their hair. Sounds like I'm the only kid that didn't go through that phase.

[missychrissy]

That Barbie story is too much!

I had Barbies growing up. I remember my sister cut the hair of all the ones I inherited from her. Somehow from that I must have learned that dolls' hair doesn't grow because I never cut their hair. Sounds like I'm the only kid that didn't go through that phase.

I did it because I hated them and haircutting was fun. I wanted my Barbies to be ugly. I even had the Brooke Shields Barbie doll, which I hated the most for some reason. It took many years (into my adulthood actually) to separate her as a person from that horrid doll.

[Gwenn]

My sister had a Kristy McNichol doll that she passed on to me. Honestly, I couldn't even tell you who Kristy McNichol IS other that that we had a doll of her - so I suppose I've never separated her from that doll. Now that I think of it, I have to wonder why on earth we had such a thing. Guess she must have been really popular before I was old enough to remember. Or someone gave it to my sister because they got it on sale for really, really cheap.

[missychrissy]

I had to Google her. Even the shows/movies don't ring any bells with me. Her doll is worth a pretty penny on Ebay right now though!

[Gwenn]

Guess I should dig it out and sell it! LOL!

ETA: I had to google her, too, to get the spelling of her name!

[Cosmosmom]

I honestly don't know which way WI will go. Like almost all the people DH works with are along with the GOP and Tea Party....and these are factory workers. All my family and people I talk to though, will not vote that way. We are really a state that can and does go either way. I would have liked to see Pawlenty in there instead.
Though any choice is better than Palin was!


I'm a Barbie person. I loved mine and played with them until I was like almost 13 and even after that when I had the excuse of babysitting. My mom still has them in the basement so if we have a girl and she wants them, she can have them. I did cut one doll's hair once and I got in big trouble for it....never did that one again. My mom isn't an empty threat kind of person.

[demigraf]

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!
Too funny, L!

Suja, were u still feeling the effects of the vodka whip when you last posted?

Erin, I'm impressed with anyone who can sleep til noon. I'm not the best sleeper. I tend to wake myself at 3 am and then it's a crap shoot whether I fall back asleep. That's what I miss about being pregnant. I slept so incredibly well with Bodhi in my tummy. Also, we watched a pretty funny movie that took place in Hotlanta and other parts of GA - "Wanderlust". Definitely thought of you.

Jen, congrats on the new van! Employee discounts are great. My parents bought a Lexus hybrid using my discount when I was at Toyota. They gave me their old 4Runner for free to thank me. Not a bad deal.

[AbbeysMom]

I'm anti-barbie, partially because I remember being creeped out as a kid by our box of barbies, which involved many naked dismembered dolls with cut or burned hair (curling irons don't work on plastic hair, but we tried anyway).

Abbey had been silently pining over these two mini-barbies at Target for about 6 months, so I secretly bought her those "from Micah". Even tough she never outright asked for them, just played with them everytime we were in the store and looked sad when we had to put them back, so it was pretty clear she wanted them. When we gave them to her she ran around the house saying "I got my wish! I didn't tell anyone but I got it, I got my wish!"

[Gwenn]

That's adorable!

[missychrissy]

Cutting Barbie's hair wasn't "bad" in my house Jennifer. I could have lit her on fire as long as it was outside. I don't think my parents cared much for Barbie either. But they were too polite to tell my dad's mother that they didn't want me to have them. I never really thought about it before, but I wouldn't have been allowed to do that to any of my other toys. I wasn't tempted to either.

[Gwenn]

I don't understand why a child cutting her doll's hair would be something to punish... Sure, it looked different, but lots of women and girls have short hair. It's not like, well, setting it on fire or throwing your toys in the trash. I can't picture my mother punishing me for that, and I can't picture myself punishing my kids either, unless it was something like cutting your sibling's toy's hair just to make him/her cry. That I would punish. But changing your own doll's hairstyle doesn't hurt anyone, and you learn pretty quickly that you can't go back so if you want their hair to stay long, you'd better not change it. Most dolls that have long hair end up with rat's nests anyway after being played with for years, so it's not like the doll will always look nice and perfect. If it's a collector's item, keep it on a shelf and don't give it to a small child anyway. So I have to admit that baffles me.

[Bridget]

No Barbies here. I'm glad that Savana has never asked. I cut my barbies' hair. And colored it with marker. They were totally punk rock.

[missychrissy]

Bobbie & Jesi cut each other's hair. We called them Crop and Chop

[Suja]

I only ever had one doll, and I gave that away to the neighbor's kids because preferred making mud pies to playing with toys. Never had any interest in anyone's hair, including mine, which explains why I don't have the first clue what to do with mine.

[Cosmosmom]

I didn't grow up with women in the family with short hair...my mom's was always long, my sister and I had ours long. the barbie I did cut looked stupid after because it was uneven and never did get it cut just right. And mine still have hair that you can comb.
I was just brought up that if I was going to have toys and nice things, I was going to take care of them properly. Our games and puzzles still have all the pieces, our dolls were keep in nice shape (love and wear and tear from playing but not destructive things like coloring on them), my sister still has all her Legos (which she liked better than barbies) and the directions for the various kits.
Though I have to say that I didn't start with barbies until probably age 7....it was baby dolls and my kitchen before that.

it could be different too because I was the oldest child and for almost 5 years was an only child. And when I got a sibling, it was like having a breathing doll to play with and she was another girl, not a brother.
And I was a pretty prissy kind of girl who didn't like to get dirty and brought a wash rag outside for a while. I still do NOT like dirt on my hands and will wear gloves in the garden.

But yeah I would punish for wrecking a nice toy on purpose. You don't want something anymore, fine, we will find a new home for it. But I don't go around trashing my own stuff that I don't want anymore. And if my daughter was destroying say some nice American Girl dolls we got her that she wanted, I would have a problem with that.

[missychrissy]

So...does this mean you'd never do the Dirty Girl Mud Run with me Jennifer? I've seen pics of it and I want to participate so bad!

Oh, and without planning on it, I ended up running 2.22 miles today! I started thinking about it this morning, that it would be nice to go for a run after Conner went home. We'd taken our tandem bike out again. We did about 3 miles on that & stopped at a playground-gosh I love biking with Conner. I'm totally slacking on teaching him to really ride a bike on his own just because I love this tandem thing we got going on. Anyway, we were going up a slight incline while he chattered away. He suddenly stopped and asked why we were going so slow. I told him it was because we were going uphill. All of a sudden...it got MUCH easier for me to peddle. He'd been coasting along behind me and letting me do all the work, but man, when he puts his legs into it I don't think I need to peddle at all! He has powerful little legs!

That about kicked my butt but it felt good and I really wanted to run. I think it was more a mental need for me today than anything, but it felt great. I wasn't going to post this because I don't want to get all geared up that I'm going to start running again, and then just don't do it. But I think I'm gonna. I can't believe I've gone so long (a year? longer?) without it.

[raspberry]

We went bowling yesterday and today, it was Gilly's first time and he had so much fun that we went both days. It had been years since I bowled, but it was a fun way to spend a rainy afternoon. A mother at story time was telling me about the program called kidsbowlforfree.com, it's a summer program. Ya'll might want to check it out and see if it's offered in your area. The kids bowl free for 2 games, then you can sign up for a family membership for $24.95. You have to pay shoe rental. I had no idea bowling costs so much! If we didn't have the deal it would be cost $40+ for the 3 of us to bowl. Anyway it expires 8/31 so we are using it all up every weekend LOL! And like I said G was loving it. They had this little dino ramp for kids, and he was thrilled with his bowling shoes heh. I love that kid. He did pretty good too, he actually beat me and dh a couple times. I apparently had blocked out how badly I bowl. I am not ashamed to admit that I used the bumper guards and Gilly still beat me. And dh has a hurt his shoulder, not the best idea to bowl with a hurt shoulder, so he bowled lefty.

Jennifer congrats on the van!! Pictures! What color did you get?

L, that barbie head story is too funny LOL!!! Gilly has this little beanie baby kitty cat that he calls "kitty". Which is a step up from the other names he gives his stuffies-it's either Gilly or a food he has just eaten. Anyway, at bedtime G will stuff the kitty cat down his pj bottoms and walk around with it. When I asked him what he was doing "mom I don't have pockets, where is kitty supposed to go??"

I played with dolls and barbies well into my childhood. I figured I might as well soak up all this "play" cause adulthood doesn't look so fun. My favorite barbie's were the non blonde ones, my dad had given me a Native Alaskan one and I had a Indian, and Latin America dolls that I loved. I also had some crazy hair times with my hairstyling doll head, she was a bad ass girl with funky hair going on. I remember my friends and I playing with strawberry shortcake dolls, that smelled like strawberries for YEARS, when we were 12 and 13 years old.

[missychrissy]

I had a Strawberry Shortcake doll too. It wasn't all that long ago when my father was cleaning out my old toys and she appeared...naked and banged up but she still smelled of strawberries!

[raspberry]

speaking of mud, have you heard of this Redneck Resort Vacation Mud Park? I saw it on HLN. It's in Tennessee and it totally looks like fun!! I found a link lol.

http://www.redneckresorts.com/home.html

[missychrissy]

speaking of mud, have you heard of this Redneck Resort Vacation Mud Park? I saw it on HLN. It's in Tennessee and it totally looks like fun!! I found a link lol.

http://www.redneckresorts.com/home.html

Uh...must go! omg it DOES look like fun! I'm totally sharing with my brother. He builds 4x4 trucks (70's/early 80's Chevys) & loves this sort of thing.

[Cosmosmom]

Um that would be a huge NO Chrissy. LOL First off I do not run unless someone is chasing me....second, yeah I don't get dirty.

[Gwenn]

I had Strawberry Shortcake dolls, too! You're right, that smell lasted forever!

[Gwenn]

Jennifer, about the dolls, I was certainly raised to care for my toys and if I had broken them without reason, etc, I would definitely have been in trouble. I guess I just don't feel changing a doll's hairstyle (or coloring her hair or drawing on eye makeup with a magic marker as my sister also did) is destroying the toy. Seems like the basis of creativity to me - I want this to look a certain way, so how am I going to make that happen? What happens if I try this? It kind of goes back to that article about "obedient" children. My dad grew up taking apart mechanical things even as a toddler, and yes, he broke more than his fair share of toys. He grew up to get degrees in engineering and physics, which for him was a continuation of his childhood curiosity about how things work. I've heard him complain more than once about how American kids aren't encouraged to take things apart when they play, and feels that is related to the fact that the vast majority of grad students in those fields come from other countries. Now in his retirement he's taking loudspeakers apart as a hobby, and has even published scientific articles about loudspeaker design. Before he retired, he knew nothing at all about loudspeakers. If my kids want to take things apart or experiment with things or change things, more power to them. I can only hope they'll turn out the way he did.