'cultural heritage' day at daycare

I'd choose one culture and dress her up. I'm sure she'll be thrilled no matter what you choose. Little girls love to dress up.

Google for some illustrative pictures and have her choose which 12 chromosomes she'd like to feature on Heritage Day.

ARGH!

So last night at 1:30 I finished the 'simplicity' pattern for a plaid jumper. Simplicitly my @$$! I thought, well, Welsh, you could go for a plaid, since the Celts all made plaids/tartans from the earliest times - even back when they were in Central Asia.

I decided not to buy her a Pocahontas costume since that might offend people who are 'real' Native Americans. Don't want to cause a Shania-Twain type incident. I resisted the urge to just put her in a USA t-shirt since I thought some people might be offended with that - sort of like saying 'I'm a real American'.

So I tortured myself with a sewing project. True, I've been wanting to do this pattern for a while and it was *supposed* to be easy. But this is the first piece of clothing I've done since I was a teen. ANd we only had a week's notice. A week!

So I drop her off and I see one of the little girls is running around in a stars-n-stripes tank dress. This is what I get for thinking too much.

And, oh yeah, I found out we're getting charged for Labor Day.

PS -

Thanks for the suggestion, Noddy, but I didn't want to struggle with one of those fussy German-girl outfits. I *know* that's what she would pick on her own.

She did seem to like the plaid fabric; she saw a scrap earlier in the week and said 'ooh! Pretty!'

Yes but how was little miss stars+stripes received?

Plaid jumpers are cute and useful beyond this, too.

Applause for your efforts!

primergray--

You've survived another milestone of motherhood. Wait till you see the next milestone--it's a doozie. Milestones keep right on coming.

Hold your dominion.

Thanks, sozobe.

I think all the kids outfits went over well. There were even little blonde girls dressed in Chinese-style brocade panstsuits. And one class all had construction-paper 'Indian head-dresses' on. Everyone was just happy to see all the little cuties together singing 'Its a Small World' together.

So next time I'll just relax...

Probably always good advice!

I just had a variant of that -- first birthday party in a new town, not at all sure what to get, wanted to get something in the right price range and thoughtful but don't know the birthday girl's taste well enough, all I had to go on was it was a pool party (indoor pool.) My daughter adores Groovy Girls, so we got a Groovy Girl wearing a swimsuit, and then another outfit, plus a swimmy hippo bathtub toy (it was cute.) So we got home and evidently the kid thought the outfit was for HER Groovy Girl and she was very very sad and trying to be brave about it but my hubby's been out of town and I'm whupped and I was like fine, take it, it's yours, we'll get another one for her tomorrow before the party. But of COURSE there wasn't time before the party, which was only determined after panicky "well if we go to THIS store, it might take less time", so then finally like wrote a check for $10 (cost of GG outfit) and stuck it in the back of the swimsuit. [shaking head]

Then when the presents were opened, it was clear that just the two things -- GG and hippo -- would've been plenty.

We gotta relax!

I just looked up Groovy Girls on Toys-R-Us. They're cute! Something to keep in mind for X-mas.

I have so far avoided Barbies, though her new friend has a ton of them and she's caught the Barbie bug. <shrugs> Groovy Girls are the same concept -- lots of great clothes and accessories -- but they're snugglier and girlier.

Her GG is named Britta, and Britta is the heroine of many, many stories in which she thunders off on her horse, Chloe (she had another name -- Calypso Callie or something -- but we re-named her) to save people and animals. I have had a terrible time thinking of new ones but she's allowed me to start recycling, that makes it easier. Sozlet (my daughter) never, ever tires of Britta stories, even though I tired of them about 732 stories ago...

I've never heard of Groovy Girls, maybe they haven't reached the islands as a fad yet... But my dd7 loves her Bratz! Barbies are passe', apparently, at least for my dd7... She got a few at her last b-day party in August, so apparently her friends are still playing with them, but not her... Since I have a ds5 who plays with dd7 and her friends, the Bratz girls have been dating G.I Joes and Inspector Gadget, and Spiderman. When I play along, I always take off the feet and they/*I* become Chinese and complain about how horribly mutilated *I* am due to wearing too high of shoes or due to my culture's weird fixation on feet and what is beautiful.

I have no idea if they're a fad or not, I got Britta for her at our favorite independent bookstore/ toy store when she started to have a must-dress-up-dolls fetish. Here's a pic:

Groovy Girls will last sozlet a long time, I bet. I just got some GG clothes & things for a 10 year old girl last Christmas at her specific request. She and her friends are still into them. I couldn't pass up the curly sofa/chaise with hot pink fringe all around the bottom. (More than I should have spent, I know, but it was irresistable.)

Last spring I read The Unauthorized Biography of Barbie. Barbie is no longer popular with preteens because sentimental mamas buy Barbie for toddlers (sometimes before the kids have enough common sense not to swallow the pieces).

Like it or not, television advertising and commercial tie-ins (Disney Happy Meals) are more and more influential in creating children's demands.

Remember, advertising and commercial tie-ins are designed to sell products. Little research has been done on how Hard Sells and Soft Sells and Saturation Sells influence young, developing minds.

We had a year of no TV, just videos, and sozlet recently started watching Nickelodeon which has some commercials -- she was saying, "I want it!", "I want that!" after every commercial. We had an interesting discussion about what commercials are. Now she's still saying "I want it!" but also, occasionally, "I want it!...." pause, more softly "...but I don't really need it. -sigh-"

Mostly, it makes me want to never let her see another commercial, but that's prolly not practical.

<Nodding...> Yup. Inspector Gadget came from McDonald's in pieces, but some other child collected them and put him together. Ds5 found him at a garage sale and knew all about it... (We almost never go to McDonald's, but the ads and the hype permeate small_fry_culture...) And one of their little friends gets one, suddenly they are hot hot, hot!