Just Say No

I was reading through the headlines on iGoogle (woohoo, love iGoogle), when I encountered this article. It left me shaking my head at our society.

Parents want toy companies to stop marketing products at children. Not because of any of the myriad reasons sociologists and psychologist have suggested marketing for children should not happen. No. These parents want toy companies to stop marketing to children because it makes the children want things the families cannot afford to buy them this year.

Ooooookay.

It is time the parents in the US pony up to their responsibilities. It is okay to say No to our children. It is okay to teach them to budget and prioritize. It is okay for our kids to have different things or fewer things or handmade things. Voluntary simplicity is okay. Even better, turn off the bloody TV and prevent the kids from seeing the ads in the first place. Spend the time playing card games or putting together tomorrow's dinner together (since too many families claim to be too busy to cook). Stop the recreational shopping so that the kids are not faced with all the "I wants" in the stores. Spend the weekends playing at the park or getting together with friends or gardening or doing the housework and the homework.

Toy companies market the way that they do because it works. Well, if we as parents in this country start to say No, the toy company marketing strategies will no longer work.

That will get the toy companies to change their marketing much more quickly than any letter writing campaign asking.

Food so Fast...

So Jimmy Johns opened in town recently. Luis ordered lunch from there a while back and he said it was so fast, he freaked. Really.

Then on Wednesday he ordered again while I was in the office. Being the snot that I am, I set a stopwatch on the computer to time it. I started the timer as soon as he finished the telephone conversation, stopped it when they walked in the door. 7 minutes, 56 second. Pretty darn good, but not freak worthy considering it was after 1 pm.

Then today I was in the office for a little bit right about noon, and two others were ordering Jimmy Johns. Luis walked in a few minutes after they ordered, and decided he wanted something too. The receptionist mentioned that my friends over at our local independent place, Garden Deli, had stopped in to remind everyone that they have always delivered to the Downtown area even though everyone seems to forget about that.

You know me. I told Luis he should order from Garden Deli. He spent a minute checking out the menu. He called over the order. By this point, it had been about 10 minutes since the Jimmy Johns order was phoned in.

Guess which order arrived first?

Yep, the Garden Deli one. It was so fast, Luis freaked again, and to be honest so did I. He paid, started eating, said bye to me and the kids. We left to go home for our lunch.

Still no sign of Jimmy Johns. Score one for the little guy.

Luis always enjoys going over to Garden Deli to pick up lunch, but had been calling Jimmy Johns because that delivery was mighty convenient. I am thinking Garden Deli has him back as a customer for good.

Our mini mes.

Those apples do not fall far from the trees.

When we entertain, I handle the making of the food. I love to cook and bake. That is probably no shock to anyone who reads this on a regular basis. Luis, on the other hand, is about presentation. He is the one fanning the crackers on the plate and putting the shrimp just so.

The girls, they are me. They start planning food gifts weeks in advance, and they both know already what they want to contribute to our Thanksgiving table.

I just realized that Vincent is Luis. How I missed this before, I am not sure. I realized it today when he decided to get himself cheese for a snack. He cut it all into tiny squares, arranged the squares in a circle on a plate and stuck a toothpick in each square. Then he put a circle of plantain chips in the middle of the cheese circle. In the very center of it all, he placed one gingersnap. That was his snack.

Oh that boy is his father's son.

Sleep, my baby

I have noticed over the years that how old my child looks is directly related to the angle I am facing him/her from and whether said child is awake or asleep.

They all look so small, so fragile when sleeping. The curve of the eyelashes on the cheek is so precious, and each has a different sleeping personality that never leaves as they grow from baby to child. Abigail is still likely to be flailed across the bed with a leg sticking over the side. Isabella is still usually curled up on her side. Vincent sleeps at an angle like I do, slashed across the bed. Simon likes to be on his back with his shoulders out of the blankets.

As I was snuggling with Simon the other morning, he appeared so tiny he compared to how I normally see him. At that angle, glancing down on his face from behind, I did not see the round cheeks and the big forehead. I saw the elfin chin, the hint of his cheekbones, the bitty nose. It made him appear so much smaller than the toddler who runs gleefully around. For a few minutes, I had my little baby in my arms again.

Then he woke up, rolled over, tackled me, and the toddler was back.

Join Hands and Sing Kumbaya

As much as I love the internet, I despise it sometimes too. It is such an imperfect medium. Face to face or telephone conversations have a degree of personal intimacy and immediacy that the online world lacks. For all that we feel close to each other online, the online world and the online conversations lack tone, expression. People have made do with emoticons and acronyms to help bridge this gap, but it cannot ever be fully spanned in my opinion.

Being in person or on the telephone allows for a focus and an immediacy in our interactions that online does not. Message boards and emails let us zap off quick thoughts when our time allows, but it also allows for conversations to drag for hours and for misunderstanding to blossom. Even chat does not have the same feeling of a real conversation. It is an egotistical medium. As I chat, I focus on my screen and my words. I focus more on my words than on the words of my friend.

The internet has allowed me to become friends with people I never would have met. It has allowed me to stay connected to or reconnect with old friends. I have learned much and grown towards becoming the parent and the person I want to be because of the online world.

And yet...

All I want is peace. I want some way to bridge the two worlds, the real and the virtual. I know that I try to present an honest picture of who and what I am in my online communications, and I take everyone at face value. I do this in real life too; it drives Luis nuts, but I digress. I wish that small hurts did not need to be magnified by the failings of online communication. I wish that people did not feel so cocooned by the failings of internet communication to say hurtful things they would never say in real life.

This post probably makes no sense to some reading it and perfect sense to others. That is okay. I just needed to write tonight about this.

All I want is peace. Join hands with me and sing Kumbaya, dear friends. Then we'll make s'mores.

Just be careful because those homemade marshmallows are wicked hot when you roast them, and I know from experience that they can burn the beejeebees out of you. Let us bring peace and harmony to the real world and the online world. Hey, while we are at it, let us try to heal the divide that politics has wrought in our nation too.