Has ‘Monopoly’ Gone Too Far?
Have you seen any commercials for toys lately? What a stupid, stupid question. Toys ARE CRAZY nowadays. I thank God my son is only 4 and has never heard of a Wii,
and has no interest in video games (because we don’t have any),
and still loves Playdough.
Yesterday I saw a commercial for Monopoly: Electronic Banking Edition.
Are you kidding me? No paper money, just debit cards and calculators and higher rents and higher prices.
No paper money?? The paper money was the thing that was so cool about Monopoly.
I played this game. We all did. They also have a World Version of Monopoly now and a Monopoly Town game that my son and I play (with a talking car, pretty cool, I think he only likes it because the car talks).
There are versions now of Monopoly incorporating: Disney princesses, SpongeBob and Transformers, just to name a few.
In short: Monopoly is a Monopoly. And that is just fine. It’s ‘old school’, it’s fun, it’s harmless…
Or I thought so until I saw the commercial for ‘faster and higher’ exchanges of credit:
“With Monopoly: Electronic Banking Edition”.
Do we really need to teach 8-year-olds about debit and credit cards and a paperless society?
That’s not rhetorical… I’m asking…
Maybe we do… but I just loved the old Monopoly where getting a $500 bill was SO COOL!
And the money was all different colors 
My First Visit to a Urinal
On a recent afternoon my Little Man and I went to a rather upscale grocery store to get some very specific fruits (for a preschool project… long story, it’s not important).
As we wandered through the aisles, my son fascinated with all the unusual food, I was hit with the always-a-pleasure exclamation:
“Mommy, I have to go to the potty, REALLY BAD!” How did this happen? A moment ago he was fine. Now he was holding himself down there and wincing. Ugh. But we all know how little ones sometimes don’t bother to go when they first have the urge because other things are more important to little people than a basic human function like relieving one’s self.
“Okay, let’s look for a bathroom.” And around the next corner- awesome, a bathroom! As we quickly walked jogged to the women’s bathroom, a 20-something girl young woman bolted in front of us into the one-person room/bathroom, oblivious to the fact that a 4-year-old may not always be able to hold it as she has learned to do over her 2 decades on the planet. She saw us but figured she got there first.
Oh, how little she knows now, wait til she has kids!
So, a man working at the store saw this happen and quickly instructed us to go in the men’s bathroom, it’s just one room so, no problem. I quickly thanked him and we got in and locked the door…
My Little Guy gasped and started to giggle, he was looking at the urinal mounted on the wall and said, and I quote,
“Mommy! I love these things!” Um. Okay. And then he quickly pulled down his drawers and got up on his tip toes and relieved himself… smiling.
And then it hit me: I’ve never been in a men’s bathroom before. I looked around. Nice… same as ours, toilet, sink, mirror, paper towels, toilet paper, but with a urinal too.
“I just love the toilets on the wall!” He told me as he washed his hands in the sink.
Okay. Lesson learned. Note to self: males, no matter what age, like urinals.
It never occured to me that when he my husband takes him to the bathroom when we’re out that they go into the men’s bathroom and they have urinals in there, so that’s what he uses.
DUH.
And it never occurred to me that my 4-year-old son would have a preference for what kind of toilet he goes in.
… This has been just a random thought and observation from a boy-mom;
not having grown-up a boy myself, there are still things to learn about guys, although I am married to one too.
A little Trick (Tip) to make your bed(room) ‘Company Ready’
This falls under the category that I’ve come up with called, ‘The Cool in Everyday Life’. From time to time I share little tips that I’ve found for making life a little bit easier…
just a little, this isn’t a rocket science blog.
So, here it is. (Shout-out to my mother-in-law for sharing this with me.)
Whatever your bedspread or color scheme for your bedroom, you probably have ‘good pillow cases’ that match your bedspread. We have a navy blue comforter with matching sheets, with our bedroom accents in navy blue too, you get the picture. But I have a bunch of different sheet sets in various blue shades that I’ve picked up at sales, or because they’ve advertised to be VERY soft, etc.
SO, I always have four pillow cases (and pillows, obviously) on our bed in various shades of blue, blue sheets of various shades and the navy blue comforter (it’s a duvet cover, you take out the comforter part in the summer).
SO HERE’S THE TIP: I bought 2 extra pillows (at Target) and put my ‘nice-company-coming-over’ navy blue pillow cases on them and put them in my bedroom closet. NOW, when company is coming over: I take them out, put them in front of whatever pillows are already on the bed and- Bingo!
The bed looks all-pulled-together. My pillows match my comforter and have ‘accent’ blue pillows under them. But I always have the ‘good pillows with pillowcases’ clean and ready to throw on the bed!
Again, this isn’t rocket science, but you’d be surprised at the amount of time is saves you and how much better your bedroom looks in moments!
Try this during the holiday season… and thank me later.
Give a Kid a Car Seat… and Travel Tips from Graco
Everybody needs a site to go to for car seat specs and traveling-with-kids tips.
The great folks at Graco have just launched such a site!
Go to Ready For The Road Ahead to get helpful information on car seats and safety tips.
And while you are there, sign up to join Graco’s car seat club- Ready.Safe.Go!
For every 10 people who sign up (this is free), Graco will donate a new car seat to organizations serving families in need!
C’mon people, spread the love… and a safe car seat for the little ones.
My 4-Year-Old Son is Winking at Girls…
Well, not so much winking… but blinking. And he asked me to teach him how to wink correctly at girls… in church, no less! Click here to go over to DC Metro Moms to see my post about it…
Never a dull moment!
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