Actually, since my blowout on Friday night, I have very little excitement to report.
Very little that is personally, to me, exciting, maybe I should add.
My sister got a gorgeous square-cut peridot engagement ring, so that’s pretty exciting for her.
On Saturday, I came in on budget with my back-to-school shopping for the girls. Which while not exciting, is not trivial either, at least to me, Dan, or our budget. And the girls were THRILLED to pick out new shoes, backpacks, and even crayons for school. Thank goodness we’re not into clothes yet.
Flora, frankly, is so excited for kindergarten, which starts on Friday, I’m a little worried it’s not going to meet her expectations.
The most exciting things to happen to me are: 1) I found out that I get the DVD set of Mad Men Season 3 from my library for three weeks because it’s a box set, and 2) I received an e-mail from Amazon that told me Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins shipped today.
Hm. Those two things are going to cancel each other out. I guess it depends how much laundry I have to fold.
Which means Mad Men is going to win this week, probably.
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I know that on occasion my BIL-IL stops by here, and possibly my SIL (Dan’s sister), so I want to issue this disclaimer: I am about to bitch a little bit about the LPS Wii game, but I’m not criticizing my ILs for owning it; I’m criticizing the makers of the game.
Okay? Okay.
Here’s the thing: Wii offers a plethora of games, and Mario Kart is right at the top of our to-buy Wii game list. (There’s some dance game out there, too, that is supposed to be awesome.) As a treat for my niece, the Littlest Pet Shop game was purchased, and it was cracked out yesterday.
And I don’t like it. Because the essential message of the game is: be cute (and those LPS animals are adorable), play games to earn “Kibble Kash”, and go shopping.
Am I over-reacting? (Yes is an acceptable answer.) I don’t want my girls to play shopping video games; I want them to play sports-themed games, or driving games, or adventure games. And, maybe, the occasional shopping game, don’t get me wrong. It just seems that the LPS game could have been more about cute pets playing cute games and way less about “Kibble Kash” and purchasing the right accessories.
/end rant
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Of course, to my own discredit, I let my girls watch too much Phineas and Ferb, where the main girl characters are either a) obsessed with busting her little brother (a role model that does not bode well for Le Bud) b) “in love” with one of the boy characters and playing coy about it and/or c) exist to be in the service of the boy characters (i.e. the Fireside Girls). So, yeah. I’m gonna have some ‘splaining to do down the line.
Red Pen Mama 
I try to wash my hands of all responsibility for what they absorb via television and video games. It’s amazing how freeing it can be to be negligent…
Only slightly joking about that…
Now you really never want to read MY blog, do you? Sigh… I have a tendency to do this. I end up losing readers before they ever even click over. FINE. FINE! Don’t read me. Whatevs. Gonna go stick my head in the oven.
Nice meeting you…. 😉
I know, I know. it would be so much easier if I could just ignore the outside influences!
From the aforementioned,
The LPS wii game is nothing compared to Webkinz™. On there you’ll find ads for new W™ pets (real ones, from a store, with bricks, or at least drywall), new games to buy (with Kinz Kash, coincedentally), outfits, furniture, food, accessories, the list goes on and on. But it’s not a bad thing. Part of growing up consists of buying things (and then selling them on craigslist!). I mean how many video games put pre-pre-teens behind the wheel? At least LPS and W™ aren’t about degrading women and treating them like sex objects (as in BRATZ dolls). Unfortunately there is no budgeting/responsibility message that comes along with these games as “Kash” can be “earned” at will. But if you are concerned about creating little materialistas, I think the inundation of capitalist society sort of makes it inevitable in some regard. I think they (culture outside the home) get to espouse irresponsibility, while we (parents with a conscience) get to correct that. It’s entertainment. A chance to do what you don’t normally get to do.
I pretty much agree with those last few points. It’s just so exhausting! 🙂
I vote for MAD MEN!!!
Mockingjay won last night. Tonight, it will be back to Mad Men because I have about 4 loads of laundry to fold.
[…] BIL-IL did stop by and commented about the LPS Wii game, and he made a good point, too, that we parents have to correct the cultural tendency to espouse […]