Happy Halloween

Halloween has always been one of my favorite times of year, and it seems to be a favorite family event this year. Our neighborhood is hosting a block party with trick-or-treating tonight. We’re joining in on a little of the fun. Here’s Rylee with her costume this year.

 This is the modeling of the costume yesterday.

 This is post-pulling off all the flowers and post-trick-or-treating.

Rose Petal Cottage by Hasbro

I hadn’t thought much about this toy except that Rylee would absolutely LOVE it. I was doing a search to add to Rylee’s wish list. I did a search for ‘little girl cottage’ and ended up with blogs about women complaining about this toy.

Rose Petal Cottage: Where you can literally place little girls in a box.Today’s Broadsheet column in Salon alerted us to the existence of Playskool’s new Rose Petal Cottage. It’s not like we’re against cooking and doing the laundry (although we don’t engage in the latter nearly as often as we should) or shit that’s girlie and pink. But we find ourselves really fucking annoyed/creeped out by this toy, which is part of Playskool’s Dreamtown collection. The playhouse — which can be filled with a sink, an oven, a laundry machine, a cradle — is aimed at little girls with the tag line, “Where dreams have room to grow.” (The clip above incorporates two commercials, one for little girls, and one for their moms.) All we’re saying is that there could be a little more balance among the choices Dreamtown offers little girls, so that it accurately reflects life as a woman. After all, when these kids grow up, they’re going to realize that cooking and cleaning aren’t so much dreams as nightmares.

hasbro’s guide to being a “good” wife

Hasbro has recently aired commercials for a girl’s play set named the rose petal cottage. it is supposed to be a place “where dreams have room grow.” because you know, every girl want to grow up and be a good wife that bakes muffins, does laundry, and tend to the babies.

the idea of this toy kind of offends me in more ways than one. i know most little girls play with baby dolls (i would draw on their faces with marker, yay fun!) and they play house (forts are the best!) Where is the imagination in this particular toy? It opens up and there is everything that a housewife needs to keep her household running smoothly. except a bottle of booze and Excedrin migraine.

in my opinion, there is not significant stimulation for growth with this toy. it doesn’t stimulate the imagination that other toys would. what happened to fort-building? easy bake ovens? dress-ups? playing house? hell, even barbies stimulates social skill building (i’m not going to get into the whole “body issues” things right now).

I personally think it’s a great idea. In my opinion, it’s a life size doll house and there’s plenty of imagination in that. Since when did playing with dolls and playing house keep a little girl from becoming a doctor or scientist? Sure, there should be diversity, but I can’t grasp the reach these other women are making about this toy. It’s cute and sweet and it’s a TOY that many children will enjoy playing with.

Rylee loves helping out with the house and when I saw it on TV I thought it would be a way for her to play without me worrying about the knives getting in the way. She already has a play kitchen that she loves, and I think this would be a great step up for her. Sure, she’ll still run around outside and scrape her knees, climb trees, play with the tools, color, and build stuff, but I think she deserves a cute little cottage to go relax in when it’s all done!

And on a slightly separate note, but related:

When did staying home and raising children become a hindrance to women and children in our society? When did parenting become a problem?!

Tom’s Birthday

Tom’s birthday was Friday and mostly uneventful. He had to be at work at like 2a.m. and got home around 4p.m. He normally doesn’t like his birthday so Rylee and I always try to wait a day or two before helping him enjoy the new year in his life.

Yesterday was Rylee’s day.

She drew and doodled her heart’s content out for Daddy.

She also, took time to put each one in its rightful place in the art gallery.

It was a most amusing sight, but gave Tom a smile for the day.