Fun With Play-Dough

I have issues with Walt.  Him and his cronies have not done a nice job of representing mothers in their movies.  Mothers, in most Disney movies, are either evil bitches that you want nothing to do with, or they are nowhere to be found.

Where is Snow White’s momma? That’s right, she’s dead. She has been replaced by the evil stepmother, and we all know how that worked out. The princess gets to clean the palace, and is almost taken out by one of the evil queen’s employees (”I was just following orders!”). She survives the assassination attempt, only to end up with seven (?) strangers in some dingy cabin. Once there, she gets to –you guessed it- clean some more. Then she is attacked again, and is subsequently rescued by a French-kissing anonymous prince, who kidnaps her and makes her his wife. What? Why can’t he take her out to dinner first? And a movie? It’s all a little sudden, isn’t it?

But I digress.

Cinderella’s mother, where is she? I think we’re supposed to assume she is also dead, and has also been replaced by an evil stepmother.

Belle: no mother anywhere to be found. This time they don’t even bother to explain it. She may be dead, or she may have run away with someone else, or maybe she’s in jail, serving out a sentence for heroin possession…who knows?

Ariel the mermaid doesn’t have a mother, Sleeping Beauty has one but isn’t allowed to live with her, and then there’s Nemo, who may not be a princess, but still has to live with the knowledge that his mother was brutally murdered by something scary with lots of teeth.  Jasmine, no mother. Tinkerbell: forget about it. 

They finally broke the mold when they made the Lion King, and killed the father instead. Although they only did it because that’s what happened in Hamlet, it was still refreshing.

I know for most of these movies, the blueprint already existed. Maybe a better question to ask would be why, in all these old fairy tales, are mothers depicted so poorly? But I don’t think that’s a good counterargument: the folks at Disney are more than happy to change the facts when it benefits them. If they weren’t, Pocahontas would have been a very different movie.

I have a three year old who is –how shall I put this- somewhat obsessive in his tastes. It means he won’t eat a damn thing unless he has his orange Shrek spoon, and he only wants to wear certain clothes on certain days.  When a cookie accidentally breaks in half, he refuses to eat it; when you give him a boiled egg he only eats the white part.  It’s not enough to leave the yellow part on his plate, it needs to be demolished, rubbed in the carpet, to drive the point home that yolks are not acceptable. Feeding him an egg means watching him at close range, and taking the yolk away from him as soon as it’s free; your movements have to be slick and fast, kind of like a cobra going for a bunny.

I hear this type of behavior is normal for three-year-olds, and I wonder: since when is normalcy established by frequency? Just because millions of toddlers around the world deem this behavior acceptable, we have to live with it?

The obsessive behavior isn’t restricted to feeding time either; it extends into television habits.

My son likes Elmo. I know; he’s not the only one.

That red freak entertains millions of children on a daily basis. They learn their ABC’s from him, potty training, how to not be scared of all kinds of crap, and how to stay healthy. They also learn it’s okay to speak of yourself in the third person, something I find so unbelievably irritating that I’m having trouble breathing just thinking about it.

And here’s where the obsession becomes a problem. Kids don’t want to watch Elmo once, or twice. They want to watch him 30 to 40 times. Per week. You know how an episode of CSI goes from exciting to tiresome after you see it two times? Little children don’t see the world that way. They want to watch, And then they want to watch again. And again.  They are not satisfied until they know all the dialogue by heart (including the little piece at the end where Elmo advertises Sesame Street-dot-com) and you, the parent, are standing in traffic hoping someone will run you over.

People without children always say, “why don’t you just refuse to put the DVD in the player?” Listen, by the time they’re three, they know how the DVD player works. Also, if you want to get any work done around the house at all, you aren’t going to fight over this. You put in the damn movie, you sigh, and you accept the inevitable.

I, too,  started out as one of those parents that said “No Television!” Trust me, I was convinced I would not use the television as a baby sitter. But then I realized I had to scrub the floor and do the dishes from time to time, and I gave up. 

Some day, you will too.

At a town hall meeting in Texas, McCain claimed to know how to find Osama and how to get rid of him. Really? So, why not tell us now?

But I don’t feel like jabbing at McCain today.

I found a rather amusing bit of news on the CNN website:

Capitol Police officer admits setting fires

WASHINGTON (CNN) — A policewoman suspected in a series of small fires in restrooms in buildings around Capitol Hill late last year has admitted guilt and agreed to resign and pay restitution to avoid prosecution.  Karen E. Emory, a U.S. Capitol Police officer, must resign by March 4, get a year of professional counseling, and avoid any other criminal activity over the next 12 months.  She was indicted for destroying government property after investigators and prosecutors suspected she was behind at least two fires in women’s restrooms in the buildings. None of the fires caused injury or substantial damage, and restitution is listed at $215 dollars, payable within 90 days.  As part of an agreement for deferred prosecution, Emory signed a statement saying she “willfully destroyed property of the United States, specifically, toilet roll dispensers and toilet tissue under the control of the architect of the Capitol,” causing damages of less than $1,000.

–       CNN’s Paul Courson

Read the whole article at http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/

Now there’s a dissatisfied citizen. I’m so intrigued, and can’t wait to find out more about this story. What motivated her to set toilet paper on fire? Just a plain old pyromaniac, who got caught early? Does she lie awake at night, fantasizing about seeing the whole damn building go up in flames? And what would have been next? Sometimes I think it would be funny to let people like that do their thing, without interference, just to see how far they will go.

And what is that with having to abstain from criminal activity for 12 months? What, when the twelve months are over she can set fire to the White House?

What would it be like to try and find a job after this? 

Maybe she should only be allowed to work near large bodies of water.

I cannot tell you how relieved I am after hearing our warm and loving president speak to the press corps today. I tell you, that news conference came just in time. Bushy told us that we’re not headed for a recession after all, “it’s just a slow-down.”

Well, that’s just wonderful news. 

Here I was, all worried; now it appears that everything is going to be just fine. Isn’t it great, George, to be president, and be able to make your own reality? And such imagination you have; I’m feeling positively giddy. I Love Fairy Tales! Can someone put that on a bumper sticker?

Also, we should all get anywhere between $300 and $1200, or maybe $1800 or $600, or…well, whatever, as long as it’s divisible by the number 300. What shall we spend it on?

I am going to take my check to Barnes and Nobles and buy books for my kids; as many as I can carry, so they don’t grow up stupid.

My favorite George-quote:

“It seems that no matter what happens in Iraq, opponents of the war have one answer: retreat.”

Well, yeah, we’re annoying that way. But George, we wouldn’t have to repeat ourselves so often if you would just listen.

Wait, I have a fantastic idea. Since you and your buddies have done such a capital job here in the motherland, why don’t you all volunteer to move to Iraq and run the government over there? I hear there’s a need; that way you don’t have to give up the crown, and you can bring the whole gang, even the ones that have publicly resigned or quietly disappeared. You can take Tony Snow, too.  And I hear there are fewer rules over there, so nobody has to worry about the whole wiretapping-thing.

Deal?

One last thing, stay informed. Read up on PEPFAR; the wikipedia entry is actually quite good and it has some decent links.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepfar

At some point during pregnancy, every body part hurts; even your hair. Often, many parts hurt at the same time.  Of the approximately five million reasons for this, I’ve highlighted a few:

• It prepares you for the time your baby turns into a teenager. They will talk back, refuse to follow instructions, do everything in their power to rebel, and yell at you when you so much as interfere with their choice of jelly.  It doesn’t matter; by then you will be completely numb inside because you will still remember how much you suffered during those nine months.  Compared to an episiotomy, dealing with teen angst is like going to the circus. A boring circus.
• The pain will serve as a constant reminder to keep the father on a shorter leash; after all, he is the one that caused this mess.  Why should he have to go to the bar more than once a month? Why does he need to buy anything for himself? What do you mean, golf? Who needs golf? Why should you do stuff around the house, when he is perfectly healthy?  And if this is not your first baby, why can’t he take care of the other kids while you swoon on the sofa?
• Some people think pain is there to prepare you for labor; this is incorrect. Nothing prepares you for labor.  Only having been in labor before might give you some answers, and even then. The list of labor signs that every pregnancy book seems to include is always notoriously vague, and they -without exception- add a disclaimer that it’s different for every woman. Big fat help, that.
• Compared to pregnancy aches, your monthly cycle will almost seem like fun. Once it goes back to normal, that is.
• If you have one of those aggressive boy babies, the kind that start beating the crap out of you by the time they are 3, you can work on increasing your tolerance for pain now.
• It prepares you for some serious hurting at the gym, which is necessary for getting your old body back. Don’t think you can fix it by breastfeeding alone.

Bitter? What on earth are you talking about? I’m not bitter.