Toy Story Syndrome

This weekend Zoe and I took the train to LA to visit my parents and go to a friend's daughter's birthday party at the American Girl Place. While we make the drive all the time, this was the first time Zoe and I took the train. While I will always be a California girl to the core, there are times when the cost of living, crowding, job market in San Diego makes me want to pack it in and move. I need to remember this train ride the next time I think that way. Honestly, the 30 minutes between Oceanside and San Juan Capistrano may be the most beautiful 30 minutes I've ever travelled. But, I digress. We took the train and Jason and Lucas were supposed to meet us up in LA Saturday night after a rugby tournament.

When we got to AG Place the next morning, all the other girls had a special carrier for their dolls. I told Zoe she could get one thing there, and she chose this particular bag to carry her doll in. At one point during the lunch, Zoe handed me Kanani to hold. While other mothers may have laid the doll on the floor, or on a chair, I actually sat there, holding Kanani in my lap. One of the other moms made a comment that it looks like I really love that doll. While my main thinking was that I'm not going to put the $100 doll in her $40 outfit on the store to get trampled on, I realized that it was more than that. I didn't want the doll sitting on the floor, missing the party while all the other dolls were sitting at the table. Yes, I anthropomorphized the doll.

But this isn't anything new. Ever since reading the Velveteen Rabbit as a child I have thought of special toys as having feelings of their own. A child's love can turn an inanimate object "real." And thanks to the Toy Story franchise, I now "believe" that toys come to life the moment we leave the room. When we were moving a few years ago, I found myself actually telling Zoe's Woody doll not to worry that we would find his hat, and then actually being excited when I did find his hat hours later in another corner of the house.

A few weeks ago, Zoe misplaced "Yubbie" (her lovey - a pink blanket with a bear that she's had since she was born). Yubbie never left the house, so it's here - somewhere - stuck in a random closet/cupboard/pile of junk. The first night we noticed it missing, Zoe decided to sleep with a stuffed fox that my mom got her for Christmas. "Foxy" was a soft, squish-able stuffed animal that has become a favorite and quickly attached itself to our hearts. So yes, Foxy made the trip to LA with us this weekend.

After a long, cold and rainy tournament on Saturday, Lucas and Jason decided to not come up to LA. No problem: Zoe and I would just take the relaxing train home Sunday afternoon. After almost leaving Foxy at my parents' house, Zoe clung to her Yubbie replacement in the car on the way to the train station. After getting out of the car I stuck Foxy in the bag with Kanani that I was carrying. Union Station in LA was crowded and hectic. We got to the train, claimed our seats and settled in for the 2 hour ride. Right before our stop, I grabbed all our bags. I did a once over noting that we had my iPad, my phone, Kanani, 2 backpacks and our duffle bag. We got off the train just as Jason and Lucas were driving up. It wasn't until bedtime last night that we noticed that Foxy did not make it home. After checking the car, all the bags, calling my parents, it was apparent that Foxy was gone. I even called Amtrak on the off chance that someone turned her in, but alas, Foxy is gone.

All night I kept thinking of poor Foxy, all alone, cold and possibly wet from the rain as she lay somewhere between Los Angeles and Oceanside. I hope that she knows she was loved and that maybe another child picked her up to give her love and years of cuddles. And then I realized...

I'm freaking insane. 

REALLY? With Beth. (title borrowed from SNL)

Over the past few weeks I've been introduced to a few things that make me launch into a Seth and Amy "REALLY?!" type rant. There are just some things out there in the world that make me scratch my head and want to scream/punch something at the same time. Of course, I'm going to share them with you.

Doggie Doo - 

The commercial for this game came on during a marathon of My Little Pony and prompted Zoe to jump up and scream "Oh! Fun!" I looked up and seriously started choaking on the coffee I had a just sipped. A GAME about a DOG POOPING. Yes. DOG POOP: The Board Game. 

Now, being a parent of a fur-baby for about 11 years now, I can testify that there is nothing fun about dog poop (key-in Jason ranting about how I never pick it up) but I think we can all agree that dog poop is gross, not fun and not something that anyone wants to play with. So who thought for 2 minutes that this would be a good board GAME for kids?

Apparently Adi Golad and David Norman did. They are the people that brought you Pop the Pig, and under the thought that every kid loves a good fart noise, they went about producing Doggie Doo and betting that it would be THE new toy sensation. 

Yea. I know what Santa will NOT be bringing my kids this year. On the flip side? This would be a fabulous present for the stoner college kid in your life. 

Pox Parties - 

I'm not going to turn this into a vaccination debate. I've been around the internets long enough to know that you just. don't. go. there. That being said, when Aaron Hier posted about Pox Parties, a new trend where parents are using Facebook to find kids in their area that have chicken pox to expose their kids to the virus for natural immunity, I just had to say something. But the words.. they are just not coming. Nothing besides jsut shouting "SERIOUSLY?!" that is. 

The Facebook group is called “Find a Pox Party in Your Area.” According to the group’s page, it is geared toward “parents who want their children to obtain natural immunity for the chicken pox.” Parents are trading live viruses through the mail in order to infect their children.

Parents also use the page to set up play dates with children who currently have chicken pox. On the page, parents post where they live and ask if anyone with a child who has the chicken pox would be willing to send saliva, infected lollipops or clothing through the mail.

Maybe it's the fact that I had a kid that was dealthy ill and in the hospital. Maybe it's that the same kid then came down with MUMPS a year later due to the fact that some parents are chosing not to vaccinate their kids, leaving everyone susseptable to strains of diseases that should have been eradicated years ago. But this is disgusting to me. To willingly expose your child to an illness as serious as chicken pox? I can understand not vaccinating in hopes that because everyone else does, your kid will never be exposed to the illness, but purposely exposing them in hopes that they GET SICK? That is something I will never understand. 

Courtney Stodden - 

I know this is probably old news at this point, but I've refrained from talking about her. Hoping that if none of us give her attention she will just go away, I really try to not follow this horrific story. But then I came across the pumpkin patch pictures. And honestly, I want to just ask HOW IS THIS GIRL ONLY 17?!

I was 17 once, a long time ago, and neither me nor any of my 17 year old girl friends looked like that. And I grew up in LA. Many of my friends had boob jobs and nose jobs, but none of us looked anything like that. I think it's BS - I bet she's really a 25-year old transgendered. 

Please feel free to let me know your thoughts.

I had a {parenting} moment

This past weekend Jason had the opportunity to go to/speak at the M3 Summit in Atlanta. The conference was touted as the man's BlogHER, and I can honestly say I was thrilled that he was going to have a slice of the fabulousness it is when you are good friends with your twitterblogger friends. But, it also left me in an interesting spot. Home. Alone. With the 2 kids.

I know a lot of moms that do this weekly or a few times a month. I also have a good friend who's husband is on his fourth deployment to the middle east - and is going to be gone 9 months total. And honestly? I don't know how you all do it. I'm going to make myself feel better and say that you must have more of a routine down or something, because in all fairness, I almost lost my shit this weekend. 

Last week Rock On Mommies posted about disciplining your children, and I am SO right there with her. But my question is WHO are these moms that can tolerate their kid's bad behavior without screaming or time-outs? What are they on that they can calmly ignore the tantrums? And, where do I get some?

Blame on all the recent changes in his life, or being overtired, but Saturday did not start off well for Lucas. Within moments of waking up he was crying about some toy not working. He perked up a bit after breakfast, so I thought I could run into Target and get a few much needed items like toilet paper and milk. Well, we never even made it past the $1 aisle. 

Between Zoe refusing to sit in the cart and Lucas not putting down some Styrofoam sword, I was already on the edge. Then Lucas takes the sword (that I had told him 6 times to put down) and smacks his sister on the back with it. While I did need to get things, I made the parenting decision to leave the store immediately. I picked Zoe up and grabbed Lucas' hand and started to walk out of the store when he flopped on the ground and started kicking like a 2 year old. I was mortified. I grabbed his arm, pulled him up and walked out the door and through the parking lot all while he was screaming at the top of his lungs "OW MOMMY, DON'T HURT ME! YOU'RE GONNA BREAK MY ARM! MOMMY DON'T HURT ME! DON'T BREAK MY ARM!"

On the verge of my own tears, I put both kids in the car, slammed the doors closed and stood there taking deep, "calming" breaths. Repeating to myself "I can do this, they are MY kids, I can do this" I go to get in my car and I look up to see a Mom with two kids staring at me. I then realized that this woman was in the $1 aisle with me moments before, and had actually followed me out of the store. I looked back at her and she looked away, as if she was looking for her car, and it hit me - she was worried for my kid's safety and had followed me to see if she needed to intervene. 

What, a bitch. 

In my opinion, I did the best parenting move I could do. All parenting books tell you to follow through with your threats and remove the child from the situation when they are having a meltdown. I resisted the urge to yell at her "OH DON'T TELL ME YOUR KIDS NEVER HAVE HAD A MELTDOWN AT TARGET!" and I just took another deep breath, drove home and put my kid in the biggest time-out he's ever had. 

But it got me thinking about Theresa's post and the question of when did it become a bad thing to discipline your children? When did any and all parental disciplinary action become synonymous with being abusive?

Lucas and I had a long talk and the rest of the weekend was salvaged. While the milk and toilet paper had to wait until Jason got home on Sunday, I still stand by parenting decision - because it was MY decision.

And I'm the parent, goddammit.