Babe in Toyland

Its Toy Fair time again, and this weekend, I was invited to the Hasbro showroom to check out the goods for 2011. The real Elmo and Cookie Monster were there for an introductory presentation, and though I’m more of a Bert and Ernie gal myself, I have to admit, it was pretty cool to see the monsters in the flesh, that is, the fur.

And now, on to the toys . . .

There’s lot of action this year in the superhero move category, with both Thor and Captain America hitting theaters. Now – and I am not exaggerating – I am so unfamiliar with comic books and superheroes that I frequently confuse Captain America with Captain Underpants, but when I saw this super retro-looking shield, it was all I could do to slip it onto my forearm and begin shooting my fellow bloggers with foam disks. And I know for a fact my kids would tear each other to shreds for the chance to don this Captain America mask, and run around the house screaming their invented hero catchphrases.

I’m a bit more familiar with Thor, because back when Primo was heavily into Greek mythology, we dabbled in Norse tales. I dig Thor -- any god who wields a hammer and can rock that crazy helmet is pretty hard-core. Thanks to the people at Hasbro, now your kids can get hard-core too, not only bopping people over the head with this massive Lightening Hammer but also using it to zap evildoers with little balls that project out of the hole on the top. I saw a twenty-something man try it out and he looked positively gleeful.

I don’t know about you but I love Lite Brite for two compelling reasons – first, for the nostalgia factor, and second because my child has struggled with his pencil grip for five years and the teachers tell me every year to work on his fine motor skills with activities that involve the pinching gesture. While he’d prefer to practice pinching on his sister, I’d prefer for him to practice by carefully placing the pegs in Lite Brite. Problem is, those darn pegs have always tended to fall out and roll under the couch. But get ready for the new Lite Brite, flatscreen version – who doesn’t prefer a flatscreen, after all?- with stay-put pegs that – you guessed it – stay put.

While we’re on the subject of toys we loved as kids, you should know that the one, the only Easy Bake oven has gotten a facelift. Now, I’m usually not a fan of facelifts on people, but in this case, I’m jazzed, and I’ll tell you why. When I was a kid, there were two toys I absolutely pined for and never got, The first was a Snoopy SnoCone maker. The second was an Easy Bake Oven (don’t know why I was on such a food-preparation jag, and God knows, it didn’t continue through adulthood). The Christmas before last, my sister-in-law granted my childhood wish and gave me an Easy Bake Oven. It has however sat on the shelf in my bedroom, never used, for fourteen months, for one reason and one reason only. I do not have a regular lightbulb and I simply cannot prioritize the purchase of a lightbulb for the Easy Bake Oven, with all the other crap I have to do. But if I had the NEW Easy Bake Oven, we’d be baking already, because there is no lightbulb required. Just plug it in and shove the little tray through, Another improvement: there is storage for the trays inside the oven. May sound inconsequential to you but I for one am sick of looking at those little trays cluttering up my shelf space. The oven also has a new purple, aerodynamic look to it which I suppose is more appealing, though I don’t know that I need more pink or purple in my house.

I was impressed last year by the FurReal animals and the new addition to that family is pretty cool – Cookie, the dog. I don’t know that Cookie would take care of my daughter’s desperate desire for a pet permanently, but I bet it would stave it off for a few months, at least. This toy should work for NASA – it has motion sensor, voice recognition, infra-red technology, and who knows what else. End result? When you talk to Cookie, she turns her head in your direction, when you pet her, she wags her tail. And you never have to take her for a walk or deal with doggy doodoo. Sold.

There are a ton of new games out this year, including Monopoly Live and Battleship Live. The Live part consists of this hourglass-shaped tower you put in the middle of the board which basically talks you through the whole game, telling you what to do every step of the way. I’m sure board game purists would balk, and I. too, think it eliminates much of the collaboration that’s involved when you and your players hash out what the hell you’re supposed to do next, but as someone who never plays games because reading the instructions gives me a headache, I’m all for giving it a go.

Scrabble Flash came out last year and has done really well, so now there’s two new Flash games -- Simon and Yahtzee. I’ve found the Flash aspect insanely appealing, especially for portable game-playing, like on airplanes, cars, waiting rooms, and the like. Plus, who doesn't want to try something with Wonder-Link" technology? There is also a new Scrabble Alphabet Scoop game for the youngest players, where you can match tiles to cards that have words already spelled.

There were tons of other toys ,of course – a new Baby Alive that does it all – pees on her self, eats and cries for her baby mama; a group of toys called Poppin, for the toddler crowd which pops balls in the air for kids to chase madly; and a new line of Lego-type building toys, called Kreo, in which each kit creates two kinds of Transformer toys.

So, I know you’re still blitzed out from Christmas, but when you do recover, in time for birthdays, you’ll have plenty to choose from.

Happy Valentine’s Day: musings on Date Night Disasters

You’d think that as a harried parent with no time for myself, I’d just be so grateful to have a chance to catch up with my husband that I wouldn’t care in the slightest where or how that happened. Interestingly, the fact that we rarely have the chance to get out has had the opposite effect, making me even more choosy about the particulars. This wouldn’t be a problem except that David feels exactly the same way and our preferences are diametrically opposed to each other.

David ‘s ideal night out takes place in a pub, or more precisely, a gastro-pub, where microbrews abound and well-reputed cuts of steak are served up rare. He likes there to be loud music involved. After a loud meal of beer and beef, he’d like to proceed to an art film, ideally in another language or in English, but with British accents so thick it might as well be another language. If it is not subtitled, or British, he’d like it to be science fiction or scary or four hours long.

My ideal night out takes place in a candle-lit restaurant with fantastic chandeliers overhead and coat check. Crusty bread served hot is non-negotiable and olives, pickles or olive oil with vinegar should accompany it. There should be wine, ideally sparkling. There should be music, but only enough to buffer the sound of what the couple sitting next to me are fighting about. It should be popular and bustling but not so much that I have to wait over thirty minutes. Goat cheese must be a core ingredient on at least one appetizer and chocolate ganache should be featured on at least one dessert.

Movie selections should be two hours or less, ideally featuring actors up for an Oscar, They can be tragic but always with an uplifting ending. If anyone has sex, they should be good-looking. No sci fi, horror, suspense, or subtitles, apart form Almodovar or movies featuring that hot young actor Gael Garcia. No movies where children get kidnapped, sick or worse. No movies where anything takes place in the future.

As you see, it is nearly impossible for David and I to settle on a night out which satisfies both our needs. Sometimes we just stay in, if you get my meaning, and that works well, but then we get hungry and then we’re back to square one.

A few weeks ago, we had a disastrous date which involved dinner at Jimmy’s No. 43, on 8th Street, which was mobbed with NYU students shouting about inane things and jostling me as I waited FORTY FIVE FREAKING minutes for a table. Then we saw the new Mike Leigh movie, Another Year, which rendered me miserable and melancholy all night. First of all, how many freaking cups of tea can a person drink? And how many cups of tea am I, a paying moviegover, expecting to WATCH someone drink? I wonder, too, if Mike Leigh’s intent as a film maker is to have his audience off themselves upon leaving the theater? Why else would he create a movie in which nothing funny, promising or even generally positive happens? If I am going to watch people sink into abject misery and loneliness for two hours, they’d better be gorgeous Hollywood types, otherwise the whole thing is just too unbearable.

This is what I told David on the way home from date night.

“Next time, you choose EVERYTHING,” he grumbled.

So I did, and for our early Valentine’s Day celebration, we went to Buttermilk Channel, where you get four different kind of pickles and a chocolate pecan pie sundae in addition to a kick-ass rib eye and chocolate stouts for my beer-and-beef beau-hunk of a husband. Then we saw the King’s Speech where I could understand every single word and I only counted TWO kettles of tea being made. Brilliant underdog overcomes adversity! Now that’s a movie I can get behind, especially when it’s so well-acted I don’t have to feel guilty about being so irredeemably mainstream. Even David had to concede he felt pretty damn cheerful when the credits rolled.

And since my parents took the kids overnight, we got to sleep in until a delicious 9am the next morning and then we got to stay in bed til, oh, about half past ten.

I’m sure it won’t happen every year, but it was one Valentine’s Day celebration sans argument which is enough of a present for me. That, and the heart-shaped box of chocolates I sincerely hope David is bringing home for me.

Honey, can you say . . .

Nearly every morning, as I wheel Seconda out of the building in her stroller, we pass our super, Frank. Frank’s a affable, approachable guy, and I always flash a smile and offer a morning salutation. Seconda, however, prefer to greet him with a glare – chin downturned, the whole nine yards. To be fair, she only glares malevolently half the time, and the rest of the time, she just regards him blankly, with no interest, as if she were staring at a brick wall. Its not just Frank: this is her default demeanor when it comes to people in general --strangers, neighbors everyone gets the same treatment. It not usually a pressing matter because for the most part, these people tend not to pay too much attention to her or her decidedly unfriendly behavior. Frank, on the other hand, greets her with eye contact and a cheery ‘Hi Seconda!” every morning, and when she says nothing, nada, not even a grunt of acknowledgement, I am flooded with embarrassment.

In a frantic attempt to redeem Sec, myself and our family name, I quickly jump in:
“Honey, can you say ‘hi’?”

It’s a reasonable-enough thing for me to do, to offer a prompt. Maybe all Sec needs is a reminder about common courtesy? Maybe she’s merely forgotten? Wasn’t paying attention? Didn’t hear him?

But if the situation was embarrassing beforehand, my little friendly prompt makes it unbearable. Because she has NEVER, not once, in dozens and dozens of times, ever said ‘Hi’ when asked. Usually she says nothing, and glares even more malevolently. Sometimes she’ll reply with a matter-of-fact, “No.” Then, what might have been interpreted in a number of ways – she’s just shy, she’s sleepy, she’s got her head on the clouds, she has too much ear wax - - becomes irrefutable. My kid is rude.

Her response sets off a ridiculous response on my end, either nervous crazy laughter -- “Oh, Sec, she’s a TRIP!”-- or indignation and shock -- “HONEY! That isn’t very nice!” By the time the ten second exchange is over, I’ve been through the emotional wringer.

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She’s pretty good about saying “Thank you” and “Please” but that’s mostly because she stands to gain something in those instances. Trying to get her to say “Sorry” on command, however, is actually impossible. I don’t think she’d say “sorry” if I offered to buy her a pony, or threatened to feed her to wolves. I honestly believe that she’d prefer to be devoured by a pack of starving wolves than to apologize immediately after doing something wrong, especially when I tell her to. Because at least then, she’s have the glory of winning the battle of will with her mother.

You’d think I would have learned by now not to offer the prompt, but the need is great to demonstrate to whoever’s watching that I do not approve, that I did not raise the kid to act like this, that this behavior is totally nature’s, not nurture’s fault, It’s a way of washing my hands – hey, I TRIED To get her to be polite, you heard that, right?. And I’ve seen it work – I just saw this little girl in the coffee shop pounding on the counter, and when her mom asked her to say “Sorry” she chirped it right out, and everyone was happy.

I guess when the kids are babies and toddlers, it’s what you have to do, to teach them what’s expected and appropriate in certain situations. How would they know otherwise? But at 4, they’ve got it. So I’m making a belated New Year’s resolution. No more useless, destined-to-fail prompts for stubborn Seconda. Or at least, fewer. Ok, I’d better hone it down to “I won’t ask Sec to say Hi to the super in the morning.”

Yeah, she may turn out to be an asshole when she grows up, but at least my mornings will be more pleasant.

Grrrrl Eyeball Power

Here I am, trying to get work done and instead listening to my children run around the living room, Primo holding a plastic sword and Sec holding a baseball ball, yelling the following:

Primo:“Well, we meet again. Just try to throw those snakes at me, why don’t you?”

Seconda: “Wa-ha-ha-ha, I will! I will chase you with my horse!”

“Not so fast! I have the magic to make your house ride away. And also to make your horse frozen. BAM! Your horse is frozen!

“Then I will take it to the doctor!”

“BAM! The doctor is frozen!”

“Kill! Kill! I kill you!”

“It backfired on you so you’re dead!”

“Well I’m a girl and girls have magical powers of shooting eyeballs out of their fingernails and if these eyeballs hit you, you will die!”

I find it very convenient, as a writer, that the kids' play style involves narrating everything they do as if performing for an audience of the blind. Makes my job easy. Also, I wish someone had told me a long time ago that I contain eyeball-shooting powers. Would have saved me carrying that pepper spray my mom bought me back in high school.

FaceTime, my mortal enemy

One of the benefits of having kids is that it made me much less attached to material possessions. Partially that’s because we don’t have money now for me to have any, and partially that’s because whatever stuff I do have, the kids ruin. There is one one possession, though, which I positively treasure and that is my iPhone. I feel a real, robust love for my iPhone and yes, I have been known to sleep, curdled up next to it.

But iPhones get old and decrepit, much like people, only faster. So on New Year’s Day, with my two year plan at an end, qualifying me for an upgrade, I got myself a NEW iPhone, the fancy kind they call 4G. I was excited about the upgrade mainly because my old phone’s battery only lasted 30 minutes or so. But I was also excited to experiment with the new generation’s features, including FaceTime.

Wow, I thought, when FaceTime was explained to me by my sister, I can videochat with someone while I move around in the world? I can just take people with me where-ever I go? That’s AMAZING. Oh, Apple, I thought, you have done it again, you ingenious computer geeks!

Then I used FaceTime, And this is what happened:

As it dialed, on the screen, was a huge image of ME! To call it unflattering would be a grave, gross inderstatement. The image was so awful that I felt confused for a moment, and actually thought, “Who is that poor, unfortunate-looking person and why are we both wearing the same hoodie and earrings?” Then with horror, I came to understand that this was me, and I swear, this revelation was so earth-shattering that I all but bellowed “NOOOOOOOOO!” and shattered the phone to smithereens.

As I was reeling from the horrible understanding that if was possible I actually LOOKED like that, it occurred to me that I was calling someone, a someone who wa sseconds away from seeing this image.

“HOW DO I STOP THIS THING?????” I shrieked out loud, desperately pressing buttons.

Then, oh sweet reprieve, my sister’s face was huge on the phone and she was saying, “Why are you screaming like a maniac?”

“This FaceTime thing,” I replied, “It’s a LIVING NIGHTMARE!”

I tried raising the phone up high, down low, to the side but no matter how I manipulated it, I still looked like a fat zombie version of myself.

“WHY are you doing this to me?” I wanted to ask my beloved iPhone, “How could you ruin what we had?”

Finally, my sister pointed out that I could switch the camera my phone was using to the one on the back of the phone and then, everything was ok.

“You know, it’s really not that interesting for me to see you making yourself a cup of coffee,” my sister remarked.

“Tough shit,” I said, “You’re the one who wanted to do this.”

I should have known FaceTime would be a disaster, now that I think about it. I was all, “The person I’m talking to can see me!” with a perky, positive exclamation point but I should have been all, “The person I’m talking to can see me!” with an agonized, horro-struck exclamation point. After all, the amazing thing about the telephone is that people DON’T see you. Leave it to those computer geeks to never leave well enough alone.

DIY light sabers and others intergalactic matters

For Christmas, David got Primo a box set of the original Star Wars trilogy. It was just the sort of thing one sees at Costco and cannot bear to leave behind. We decided we would have a sort of a- home film festival, lasting three nights, in which we viewed the whole kit and caboodle. What the hell else is there to do in the boondocks of New Jersey, at my parent’s house, anyway? So we fired up the microwavable popcorn and launched ourselves into a galaxy far far away. As you can imagine, it was impossible for Primo not to get sucked into the early 80s heavenly goodness which is the Star Wars Trilogy. Except for the last few scenes of Return of the Jedi, with the Emperor, he didn’t even find it scary. He did have a few questions, beginning with this one: Why aren’t they doing anything besides fighting and trying to kill each other?

To which I replied: “It’s called a battle scene.”

Kid knows what the word epistolary means, but has never heard of a battle scene.

As a kid, I remember getting all moony for Mark Hamil and pining for braids as long as coil-capable as Carrie Fisher’s but the thing that Primo found most alluring about the movies of course, was the idea of a light saber. Really, I’d have to concur that there is no fictional weapon quite as perfect as the light saber: even the choice of the word “saber” as opposed to “sword” is impeccable and the clashing colors lighting up the darkness of those corridors and imperial chambers and the like, with each gesture accompanies by one of the most iconic sound effects of the 20th century – well, its nothing short of spectacular.

As soon as we were back in Brooklyn, Primo set about making his own light saber set, out of the slim silver LED flashlights we bought at – you guessed it – Costco, a few months ago, These flashlights make such ideal light sabers, I’m surprised the company hasn’t thought to market them to Star Wars fans with a label reading: "sizzling sound effect not included." Primo’s pal came over and the two of them had intergalactic battles all afternoon long. And if that’s not a rollicking, old-school good time, I don’t know what is.

Cinderella Ate My Daughter

If you've been following my losing battle against the princess parasite, you will not be surprised to hear how excited I was when I heard there was a new book out entitled Cinderella Ate My Daughter. Now, I haven't read the book yet, but the Times review by Annie Murphy Paul, had me hooked and I am DYING to dig in. In the book, Peggy Orenstein heads to toy fairs, beauty pageants, American Girl stores and Miley Ciris concerts, trying to figure out why and how the "princess phase" has become a more or less inevitable milestone of childhood for girls, what that phase morphs into, and at what cost our daughters feed the princess machine. This is Paul summing up the book's explanation of the very calculated invention of "Disney Princess":

"in 2000 a Disney executive named Andy Mooney went to check out a “Disney on Ice” show and found himself “surrounded by little girls in princess costumes. Princess costumes that were — horrors! — homemade. How had such a massive branding opportunity been overlooked? The very next day he called together his team and they began working on what would become known in-house as ‘Princess.’ ”

Kind of creeps you out, right? But as far as I can tell, Orenstein isn't arguing that Disney and the rest of the toy companies have invented the yen for girliness, they've only found a way to sate it and make bank. Here's the part that really engrossed me:

"Orenstein finds one such enlightening explanation in developmental psychology research showing that until as late as age 7, children are convinced that external signs — clothing, hairstyle, favorite color, choice of toys — determine one’s sex. “It makes sense, then, that to ensure you will stay the sex you were born you’d adhere rigidly to the rules as you see them and hope for the best,” she writes. “That’s why 4-year-olds, who are in what is called ‘the inflexible stage,’ become the self-­appointed chiefs of the gender police. Suddenly the magnetic lure of the Disney Princesses became more clear to me: developmentally speaking, they were genius, dovetailing with the precise moment that girls need to prove they are girls, when they will latch on to the most exaggerated images their culture offers in order to stridently shore up their femininity.”"

I find this fascinating because it seems so in line with what I've witnessed in Seconda. Her desire to wear princess dress-up is, in no way, causal -- it's not even a desire so much as an urgent need, and when she is not wearing a frilly dress, she gets genuinely worked up, frantic. Now sure, this is partly because I've got a kid that could get frantic over getting the wrong kind of breakfast cereal, but I see, too, that when she's not donning her dress, she feels in jeopardy in some way. And I'm reminded of how even a year or two ago, she would go apopletic when I put pants on her, insisting, "BUT I'M A GIRL!!!"

I'm wondering, though, why boys don't typically demonstrate such a fervent need as well. Maybe when I read the book, I'll find out.

In any event, I'm soon to be attending the same toy fair Orenstein mentions in her book and while I'm there, I'll be going to a talk on "Rethinking the Gender Bias in Toys", so fret not, readers, you'll be hearing more on the matter.