New Jersey Moms Blog

Wii Fit Can Go to ^*&(

The Wii Fit just told my four year old daughter that she is in danger of being overweight.

We had been stalking the store since Christmas because we really wanted one, so it was with great jubilation that the big box finally was at our favorite big box store this week. We brought it home and everyone started right away—getting weighed, measured and sized up. They love the various activities, but I cringe every time they have to go through the signing in process.

As the mother of two girls, I am very aware of how insidious body image is as an issue. It creeps in from all directions. Cartoons (oh, I am still not over the Dora betrayal!), magazines and the innocent comments of relatives all shape the vision a girl has of herself.

Et Tu, Dora?

Nickelodeon will be unveiling a new Dora the Explorer. She’s a tween who still solves adventures but “the brand captures girls’ existing love of Dora and marries it with the fashion doll play and online experiences older girls enjoy.”

Really? Let’s take a unique show that challenges a girl to find her way in the great wide world and put her inside the confining walls of a mall. There's nothing new in that.

In Which I Steal Some Soda and Worry About the Future

We are eating at a very popular fast food chain and oldest daughter finishes all of her chocolate milk. She’s still thirsty. This restaurant has the refill your own cup station. I take her now empty chocolate milk container, rinse it with the water dispenser, and fill it with a bit of orange soda. When I got up to do it, my husband started to protest. I thought he was joking. Turns out he wasn’t. He decides this is stealing. That I’ve set a bad example for the girls. And he was serious and vocal. I still get her the drink.

Despite his rather vehement arguments about it, I still don’t think I did anything wrong. And what’s more, I’ll probably do it again. I have since developed a list of all the reasons why I don’t think this is theft. And why I don’t think it’s a bad example. But they are really just rationalizations for something that wasn’t worth the thought in the first place. The bottom line is that it was no big deal.

A Stack of Hats or How to Just Let it Be

I’m a mom. I’m a high school English teacher. And I find that I have a hard time being both when a school work comes home. Admittedly, my daughter is only in third grade, but my teacher-sense (you know, like Spidey-sense) gets turned on every time she has written work to complete. Anything from spelling sentences to projects brings out my inner grader.

Compounding the problem is the fact that most of the members in my family got the gene that dictates a need for perfection. There are no battles like the battles over sentences between a stubborn nine-year-old and a crotchety English teacher also wearing her mom hat. I want her to learn from her own efforts and mistakes. I want her to spend the time to complete work that shows her abilities. And don’t get me wrong, she wants to do her best work; but for some reason, our ideas of what that is don’t often mesh. I have said it before, and I will say it again, I would trade her eventual attendance at an Ivy League College for not having to do spelling sentences again! The battles that ensue are evening long struggles. I know they shouldn’t be, but if I have the ability to teach her, shouldn’t I?

Stepping Out on the Stage, Stepping Out of my Life

Oldest daughter, all of nine years of age, recently completed her run as Molly in her elementary school production of Annie. For one of the first times ever, I had very little to do with this activity. For the auditions I helped her run her lines, but once she got the actual roll she took on the work of memorization all on her own. I picked her up from practice, I got her costume items, I paid for the t-shirt but that was it really. I would ask her if she needed help, but she never did. I even went in one day to talk to the teachers running the production. They said she was doing fine. She wasn’t nervous, so she didn’t need my advice or assurance. She handled this entirely on her own.

Can I Cancel Christmas?

Warning: In the rest of this post I sound like a Scrooge!

Here are some reasons why I am ready to check out of the rest of this holiday season:

I have lists of holiday traditions I’d like to start. For example, I wanted to start making gingerbread houses. So I was going to take the youngest one to the local gingerbread holiday display to get us inspired. There was a forty-five minute line—outside. I was going to buy a ginger bread house kit. My husband thought it would be more authentic to make the pieces. Apparently he isn’t overworked or stressed, but the idea was enough to make me become phobic towards gingerbread. Maybe next year.

I Want...Everything

When I grew up, my family was poor. This is not the beginning of a story in which I walked to school in the snow, without shoes, uphill—both ways. We really were poor, often receiving assistance from churches, charities, and the government. And I worked really hard for years to be where we are right now. Don’t get me wrong, we aren’t swimming in cash, but we pay our bills and we have a home. These were not constants in my childhood. I know that tales of my woes won’t have an impact, plus who needs to rehash all of that? And I am happy for the stability and happiness my children have experienced.

 

My conflict comes in all that they have. I am glad they have their things, but I get glimpses of how these things may be warping them. It has become every more obvious as they are bombarded with holiday catalogs and commercials. As each new toy is shown to be AMAZING! the eyes of my youngest daughter become wide and she says “I want that!” There are times when she remembers to say please, but mostly she just wants and wants and wants.

To Cupcake or Not to Cupcake?

It’s Halloween party sign-up time. This year I will be bringing in spoons to my daughter’s pre-school. Really. That’s one of the items on the list, a list that did not include any food. I do not know what they will eat with the spoons I bring in, but certainly there will be something to use the spoons for?

Why is it that not even on this most kid centered holiday are the kids allowed to enjoy themselves? Sure, there will be games and they will be in costumes. But when did food become the enemy of the preschool party? Allergies aside, why is it that kids can’t be kids and enjoy a few treats?

I love to bake, but I only do so for special occasions. Cupcakes are only for birthdays. Chocolates are for Christmas. If it’s not a holiday, these treats aren’t in my house. So it’s not surprising that my girls look forward to the holidays—there will be treats on hand! And it is easy to see that it won’t hurt them to have a treat every so often in celebration of a holiday or two.

I Hate Political Emails

I recently started receiving emails from an address I didn’t know. They were mostly innocuous pictures of people I didn’t know on vacation. I figured maybe I knew the photographer (hence not pictured) and would just politely delete the emails after scanning the pictures. Then the person started sending me political emails. And ones I didn’t agree with, none-the-less.

xxx

Usually, I figure there are enough emails going around that I don’t need to make it worse by forwarding ones I don’t like or even responding to them. But lately I’ve felt that was just to passive and that maybe I should try to counteract the negativity in the world.

xxx

So, for these emails I researched the content and found some information that presented a more centered approach. I then hit reply all—and I do mean all, anyone who was listed as having got the email through its series of forwards. I had never done anything like that before and I’m not sure what possessed me. Did I really think that random strangers would read the information? Did I think that they would want information when they had obviously been the intended recipients?

Fat Talk

If I were to ask a doctor, I would be considered obese. I have been this weight for about eight years. Before I had my children I was a weight that would have given me a BMI rating in the overweight category. Even in high school, I just barely slipped myself under the line to be labeled normal. All of this is to say that I have always struggled with my weight. This struggle lately has taken the form of trying to be comfortable in my skin. I struggle with the fear that I will pass my body issues onto my daughters. So much of society sees me and my body as a problem. Lately I’ve been trying to not see it as a mark of shame—with greater and lesser success depending on the day.